They say if you can’t say something nice about the dead, you should say nothing at all.
(Continued below the fold)
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
They say if you can’t say something nice about the dead, you should say nothing at all.
(Continued below the fold)
I could have not said a lot more, but I thought I’d spare you all.
She’s with Jesus now. In non-existence. Who says the world is getting worse?
It has been a banner year for deaths. If the Cubs can win the World Series and Trump goes down this could be a great year. I have to go get some pink champagne. I had a bottle for Scalia’s timely passing…
Well [not] said.
Incidentally, if you left the long blank wall of nothing, you might dissuade the rank and file shitbags that leave thoughtless comments.
Well I have no such scruples (the dead make such easy targets after all? although in Schlafly’s case that’s a rather academic distinction).
Phyllis Schlafly was the mother of some people and the aunt of others. She lived a life of 92 years, arguably senile for the last 80 of them. Her feeble hand was guided 34 years ago to have established a trust fund for the purposes of funding legal battles resulting from failure to adhere to various socially liberal acts of Congress Schlafly opposed, most notably the Equal Rights Amendment, her biggest resulting worry of which was that women might get conscripted in several upcoming wars she supported, chiefly an armageddon against the Soviets. She divded her time between heterosexualization of her eldest, gayest, son, and being pointed in the direction of various right-wing presidential candidates in the hope joint photo opportunities might swing retirement complexes in south Florida, as well as make John McCain appear 30 years younger than he really is. Sometime between her last colon cleansing and reptillian skin shed, she acknowledged that a threat greater than the Russians lay over the horizon, namely that the Republican party had begun to court Latinos, thus endangering its “whiteness”. She chose to believe the recognition of the constitutionality of same-sex marriage never happened, an approach she had previously employed regarding Vatican II, and Oreo cookies with some success. At some point she died and absolutely no one of consequence gave a shite.
still waiting for the first obituary to mention Conservapedia
See, I have a different standard: If the dead aren’t nice, you should definitely say something.
Agreed, Iris.
She has gone to her (ahem) reward. And deserved it well.
I’m just glad she got to see marriage equality become a reality in the USA before she died.
ugh, another,
yuk again.
as much as I dislike Schaffly I grieve her passing.
Seems 2016 is trying to compensate for taking stars that I like: Bowie, Rickman, Wilder, Keith Emerson only the first 4 that come to mind of a long list this year.
But that is personifying an arbitrary period of time. oops.
It’s hard to express grief, which exists even for a hated person.
RIP [sincerely]
What was the cause of death? Did someone dump a bucket full of water on her, or did she have a fatal run-in with a falling Kansas farm house?
Or one could say, “Oh? I thought she was already dead.”
PZ’s commentary was so … subtle, I thought my browser was acting up again.
I have problem speaking ill of the dead so good riddance to her.
Seconded, williamgeorge. Good riddance, indeed! A spiteful, hateful woman who did far more harm in her miserable life than she did good.
So now that Mother Teresa is officially a saint, I guess Phyllis Schlafly’s* death is perfect timing. How long before the church announces her first miracle?
* From what I gather, Phyllis Schlafly was Catholic.
hmmm
ok fine
waydude #16
probably
The gadfly was finally swatted.
One can not say, “The world is a better place today” because her ignorance caused decades of damage that have to be undone. To make the world better would mean she did something productive with her life, or even just apologized. Instead she was unrepentant and loathsome to the end.
taraskan #5
That was lovely.
I may commission you to write my eulogy.
@ Tobinius – Catholic with a vengeance…..Yes, a fitting obit….and that makes the SECOND winger Catholic personality to bite the big one this year. Fine with me.
I have not heard of Phyllis Schlafly before today, and I see that I was not missing anything.
It’s been a good year for repulsive people dying. Antonin Scalia. Tim LaHaye. Islam Karimov. Now Phyllis Schlafly.
Is it too soon to hope that Pat Robertson and Billy Graham might soon be added to that list?
“They say if you can’t say something nice about the dead, you should say nothing at all.”
Phyllis Schlafly is dead.
Isn’t that nice!
But there was, PZ! It’s nice that she’s dead.
Too little, too late, but still … nice.
Should have refreshed.
“I’ve never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.”
Clarence Darrow
(from the obit:)
Huh. I’ve bought and drunk Schlafly beer, thinking that the name was probably just a coincidence, especially since I couldn’t imagine the wingnuts of the family being brewers.
Well, if it made Phyllis of that name unhappy, all power to Tom. And good hops and wort, too.
I had nothing good to say about her when she was alive.
And nothing has changed except the world is a slightly better place.
Phyllis was involved in a power struggle with 3 of her children when she died over the Eagle Forum. To the point where there was a lawsuit.
The usual GOP and xian family values. Spending your last days suing your kids. Well, at least she got the hypocrite sacrament down.
I don’t see anything wrong with speaking the truth of the dead. If that happens to be negative, so be it. This ‘speak no ill of the dead’ thing only serves to sweep criticism away. This song makes the point well, though a couple of the examples were gratuitous for the sake of humour.
Not that I know a thing about Phyllis, but I see no reason to whitewash criticism of her.
What’s with the caps lock on all those enter keys? Its such a LOUD nothing. :)
Well, that’s one less vote for Trump. And I second Jim Phynn’s nominations above.
BWAHAHAHAHAHA – very good! Brought a smile to my face.
To be more serious… I actually think this is an issue. WHY can’t you speak ill of the dead? The only thing I can think of is some sort of religious idea that the dead are not actually dead but still alive somehow. Maybe they will hear you and exact revenge? Or??? We had an absolutely horrid family member die but we could not talk about it, because people are just so absolutely horrified when you do speak ill of the dead. That was tough: we had suffered years of abuse but we could not talk about it. And a tip for those in a similar situation, singing “Ding Dong The Witch is Dead” or explaining that you prayed to your electric smoker for the death, does not go over well with the general public. Even though we found some comfort in the humor.
Oops, screwed the url in #30. The song in question is here.
“By getting married, the woman has consented to sex, and I don’t think you can call it rape,” – you know fucking who
There is your bar, just be nicer than that.
Serena Joy has gone to her eternal reward. The republic of Gilead will send some flowers. As long as they aren’t too expensive.
“How long before the church announces her first miracle?”
1: She’ll make a blind man deaf.
2: She’ll walk under water.
3: She’ll cure a ham.
To quote what RMS wrote in response to the death of Steve Jobs:
Steve Jobs, the pioneer of the computer as a jail made cool, designed to
sever fools from their freedom, has died.
As Chicago Mayor Harold Washington said of the corrupt former Mayor Daley,
“I’m not glad he’s dead, but I’m glad he’s gone.” Nobody deserves to have
to die – not Jobs, not Mr. Bill, not even people guilty of bigger evils
than theirs. But we all deserve the end of Jobs’ malign influence on
people’s computing.
Unfortunately, that influence continues despite his absence. We can only
hope his successors, as they attempt to carry on his legacy, will be less
effective.
penalfire #38
This thread is about Phyllis Schlafly.
From Mayor Daily, to Steve Jobs, to Phyllis Schlafly.
okely dokely
What a waste. Schlafly was a deeply intelligent, driven, organizationally innovative and talented person who spent her entire life fighting on behalf of sexism, racism, homophobia, and the entire reactionary mix of nastiness. Such a squandering of talents on an unworthy, awful cause.
I suppose it is comforting, though, that Schlafly lived long enough to see her awful accomplishments undone (except we still don’t have a national ERA).
Good. All of her most significant achievements involved making the world a worse place to lie, and the world is better off from her having died.
Oh, also, hooray, penalfire going on another weird anti-technology screed. Are iphones, twitter, and amazon all going to become skynet or something?
Worse place to live, that is.
There’s one undeniable advantage to being a shitty person: Your life always ends with a good deed (or a joyous occasion, if you prefer).
I think I’ll commission taraskan as well. But, I think I’d prefer it to be a proper roast.
Although, if anyone starts making polite lies about me at my wake, I’m getting up and leaving. ;)
Epitaph:
Never send flowers when poison ivy will do.
Let me try: She left the world a better place.
By finally fucking off permanently.
Phyllis Schlafly was a driven, committed, dynamic, persuasive, energetic, persistent, determined and ruthless bigot, sexist, racist, homophobe who over six decades did tremendous damage to the United States and many (if not most) of its citizens. I remind people only that without her, the Equal Rights Amendment would have passed, and much of the terrible sexist recidivism of the last thirty years would have been strangled in its crib.
As Clarence Darrow put it, “I read her obituary with great satisfaction.”
I repeat here what I said elsewhere : “I did not go to the funeral, but I sent a nice letter expressing my approval.” (a slight paraphrase of) Mark Twain.
taraskan @5:
No, just no.
This is ablism. It’s turning senility (a medical condition a lot of people have) into a slur.
Most senile people are not terrible people. Many of them are people who’ve done much good and, through no fault of their own, are no longer able to think straight.
It’s also ridiculous — senile people can’t get it together to do the kind of harm she did.
I’d normally agree with you PZ but, as I posted on We Hunted the Mammoth
Phyllis Schlafly was a hypocrite, extolling the virtues of woman as doormat while simultaneously aggressively pursuing a career as a public speaker, (author), opinion former and (domineering) matriarch. She was also racist and bigoted. I hope she did not suffer as she died but any other expressions of sympathy (or even silence) would make me a hypocrite.
items in brackets added to this post
Sorry, just realised I sounded as if I thought you to be a hypocrite. Not the case. I was referring only to myself.
The main reason not to speak ill of the (recently) dead is so that you don’t add to the distress of their loved ones.
If any of her loved ones are reading this blog, my condolences. She will be missed… by you. Just try to ignore the popping of corks by the rest of us.
I am almost, but not quite, as heartbroken as when I heard Idi Amin (Last King of Scotland, among other titles) had died.
And wossname, she who was ambassador to UN during the Reagan years died.
She who claimed authoritarian toruture and murder is nicer than totalitarian torture and murder.
And PS apparently supported Trump. Nuff said.
eric blair@37: “3: She’ll cure a ham.”
Studies have shown that ham can’t really be cured. However, it’s very susceptible to the placebo effect.
PZ’s commentary has been set to music.
@53
Seeing as how one of her last acts on earth was getting into a legal battle with her children, I don’t know how true that last paragraph is.
To rephrase Bette Davis:
You should never say bad things about the dead, you should only say good. Phyllis Schlafly is dead. Good.
Matrim,
You’ll notice I mentioned “loved ones”, not “family”.
Was she even active in her final years? My understanding is she wasn’t really engaged politically at all near the end. At that point, her death isn’t making the world a better place in any sense. Osama Bin Laden’s death had more of a positive effect on the world than her’s will, and I recall PZ decrying cheers over his death as in poor taste. I’m with that line of thinking actually. I would have preferred to see Osama brought before a court than killed, if possible. In the same sense, I simply wanted Scalia to retire, or even better change his mind on things, but retiring would have done the job. So, I’m in the same boat here. Heck the last thing of any note she did was promote The Donald, an act that I’m sure had most of the republican base (not the politicians but the average joe voter) scratching their heads saying “who?”. So, I’m not invested in her death as anything other than unfortunate.
Yes, I’m the one. I’m the one who looks at time travel stories about killing Hitler and say “why not go earlier and get Hitler into that art school instead?”.
Don’t be too sure that her children are going to miss her.
Right now there is a power struggle going on for control of her organization, Eagle Forum.
It’s Phyllis Schlafly against 2 or 3 of her kids. They are suing in court right now.
They probably still talk to each other. Through their lawyers.
Xian family values. Hypocrites to the very end.
@61
I wasn’t here on Pharyngula when PZ supposedly decried that as poor taste, but I’d certainly have disagreed with him then.
That there might have been more preferable outcomes – perhaps Schlafly not spending her life making a tangibly worse place in the first place – doesn’t mean that it’s wrong to celebrate the fact that she is at least no longer able to make the world any worse.
Whether or not she’d done anything recently doesn’t change that – she no longer has the capability to do it, and that has merit in and of itself.
Even under the “respect the dead for sake of their family” thing, her kids are by and large just as bad as she was. I certainly don’t care about hurting Assfly’s feelings, nor his brother Roger’s.
What RMS wrote of Jobs applies to Schlafly, though I agree that Jobs had a
pernicious influence. Not anti-technology, anti user-subjugating
technology.
Schlafly was pretty obscure to me until I came across an anti-evolution article she wrote probably about 10 years back. Even by creationist standards, it was shockingly ignorant. Like nearly all creationist “work”, it consisted almost entirely of cribbing from other creationists, but she couldn’t even do that right. It was just a mess of nonsense, and she did not care.
I later found out that this was pretty much her M.O. with everything. The battle over the ERA was before my time, but I grew up hearing that it would have mandated unisex bathrooms. I later found out that was a lie invented by Schafly. The ERA had nothing to do with unisex bathrooms, and no doubt at least five hundred people told her she was full of shit, but she did not care.
Schlafly embodied (or perhaps helped create) the far-right’s total indifference to truth and reason. She was a pioneer in the view truth as purely instrumental, something you make up according to the need to satisfy some preexisting prejudice.
I will still continue “schlafly” as a name for anti-feminist women, in particular those who work in favour of the patriarchy.
You’re a kook, plain and simple. When you’re not victim blaming women on twitter for getting racist, sexist abuse, you’re ranting about the evils of amazon and apple. You’re a reverse Ray Kurzweil, but no less kooky.
Like most of my generation, I associate Schlafly with the anti-feminist movement that defeated the ERA and keeps abortion a political issue. It wasn’t until I read her obituary in the Washington Post this morning that I realized just how closely associated she was with every odious policy and politician of the right wing of the gop over the past 70 years: McCarthy and anti-communism, Goldwater, the atomic bomb (). It’s hard to pick out one aspect of her career that is the most odious, but this stuck out to me:
Part of the irony of her life is that she wouldn’t have had the career she had if it hadn’t been for some of the early victories of feminism.
On the plus side, she inspired one of my favorite Doonesbury strips.
One should only speak good of the dead.
She’s dead. Good.
I’ve had some conflicting feelings since hearing of her death. On the one hand I can’t mourn it, but on the other hand, given the lasting damage she’s done, I can’t really celebrate it either.
I’ve decided that the appropriate response is to mourn her life.
Twitter was the greater evil, and I also thought they were doing Milo
Yiannopoulos a favor by banning him. At worst I was victim-blaming those
victimized by the Twitter technology.
Reverse Ray Kurzweil would not be using computers and the Internet (or
electricity or modern medicine). I’m critical of technologies that
user-subjugate (Apple, Microsoft), technologies that engender stimulus
hunger and terminate thought (Twitter, Facebook), and technologies that
produce harmful externalities that outweight the gains (Amazon drones,
automobiles).
But GNU / Linux, for example, is fine.
You can’t simultaneously claim not to be a kook and claim that hundreds of abusive, racist tweets as part of a coordinated harassment campaign is a lesser evil than a blogging platform.
So you’re a kook, got it.
Why don’t you go hang out on Infowars or something, I’m sure they’d be a lot more receptive to your bullshit conspiracies and victim blaming.
Us normal people are more than capable of understanding that the Matrix was a work of fiction, not a prediction of the future.
The existence of nuclear weapons is a bigger problem than which country has
them. Soviet Russia and the United States were equally capable of wiping
out the human species. The technology does not discriminate.
No conspiracy here. I’m not claiming that anyone is conspiring. I’m
describing what these technologies are. The minds behind the Manhattan
Project and Twitter probably had a wide range of good intentions.
I agree with you. Machine takeover isn’t happening the way it was depicted
in The Matrix.
I reject this analogy and reject that twitter is even remotely inherently evil, especially when compared to a coordinated racist harassment campaign. Demonstrate this or it will continue to be rejected as evidenceless drivel.
No, you’re just asserting that they are such without justification. Provide evidence and justify your absurd Alex Jones-esque claims, or you’re a kook.
Machine takeover isn’t happening at all. That we have slightly more advanced RC helicopters before is not proof of some looming machine takeover.
Reducing communication to 140 characters is at least “remotely inherently
evil” to someone who prefers thorough and detailed analysis. Why one might
prefer thorough and detailed analysis to one-liners is a matter of taste. I
find Twitter “even remotely inherently evil” the same reason I find pop
music “remotely inherently evil.”
This is aesthetics, not science. You can reject the view that Beethoven’s
9th Symphony is superior to Taylor Swift’s 1989 as “evidenceless drivel”,
but aesthetic judgements are not aiming to provide evidence of anything.
To refer to the original case, Apple produces electronic devices that
prohibit the user from modifying and changing them. The evidence is in the
devices: one has no access to the source code of Apple products, but one
does have access to the source code of free and open software.
That is “even remotely inherently evil” to someone who values the ability
to expand, customize, and study what one owns. Putting digital handcuffs on
products is harmful — especially harmful if one values learning. Apple are
discouraging users from understanding how their products operate.
We increasingly use technologies that we have no control over thanks to
freedom-haters like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. That is dangerous and
constitutes a quiet takeover.
So…
Y’all hear that Phyllis Schlafly died?
Not sure why I’m bringing that up….
You have an absurd, idiotic definition of evil, then, if you’re just treating it as a synonym for “thing I don’t like,” rather than some sort of moral judgment (which would, therefore, require evidence)
-Glances at my jailbroken iphone- Yeah, no, that’s bullshit.
Are you legitimately making the case that all non-open software is evil? Christ, I can’t handle the stupid conspiracy bullshit.
So fucking what?
Evil isn’t a synonym for “thing I don’t like”, it’s a moral fucking judgment that you have to provide evidence for. I don’t like banana flavored gum, but that doesn’t make banana flavored gum evil.
Bullshit. My iphone is jailbroken and my laptop is heavily modified, both in the programs it runs and in the hardware. They are no less ~unmodifiable~ than a book is.
There is probably not enough nothing in the universe to adequately express all that you can’t say about Phyllis Schlafly anymore.
@76
Fair enough, I’ll leave penalfire to his batshittery and let things get back on topic.
If you want to continue the debate, you can e-mail me at penal_fire (at) gmx.de. Got way too off-topic (I take partial blame for that).
Dark Jaguar
Schlafly wasn’t assassinated. It’s not a very subtle distinction, but there you have it. As you immediately pointed out yourself, he should’ve gotten a trial. That would’ve also had the positive effect you’re talking about. But people waving the flag and chuckling about some asshole being dead weren’t asking themselves about any of that.
Schlafly was also still active. Her Trump endorsement meant something. Bin Laden was mostly a symbolic target. He was barely involved in Jihadism anymore.
That is partly what made the assassination so disquieting.
The only real plus was that it made Bush and the Republicans look even more incompetent (never to be underappreciated).
Vivec.
In order to have complete control over your phone you had to take measures to circumvent the security built in to prevent you from fully utilizing the hardware you’d paid for.
The DMCA as originally written would have made that a crime, it was only a court judgement that struck that particular part of it down.
If you used your iPhone as it was sold to you without making warranty voiding modifications, you would be locked out of root access and unable to install software not blessed by Apple.
One of my first computers came with a schematic in the manual so you could fully understand it and modify it however you saw fit.
If you don’t see anything inherently evil in the way things are going now with iDevices and similar then you’re just not paying attention.
If I root my phone, it invalidates the warranty, then if a real fault develops they won’t fix it.
This isn’t conspiracy theorising or kookery, it is how it is
I’m with Iris on this. If the dead are miserable shitbags, you should say it.
re 84:
I agree. The “don;t say bad stuff about the dead” is out of respect for loved one nearby who may be offended and hurt, during their moment of grief. As reading an opponents blog is quite unlikely and easily clicked away, it seems acceptable to talk about all the shit she spewed, and her awful attitude about anything she did not personally originate. Still, seems pointless to speak shit about a shitty dead person who cannot possibly make any changes to their shitty attitude. Still, can be worthwhile to vent anger than has been brewing due to Schafly’s existence. So, as the not-the-blog-owner, I can;t say what to say or not. IDK
so I’ll say it. She was a shithead that obstructed all kinds of progress with her shitty attitude of shitty …
[mannn I’m getting repetitive]
Well.
I always thought that not speaking ill of the dead was because you didn’t want to piss-off their ghost.
In her case, it’s hard to see how you could make it more pissed-off.