Nicky Morgan drew the connection between words and violence in “ANY QUESTIONS”. The old nursery rhyme “sticks and stones make break my bones but words will never hurt me” is actually complete nonsense. Words can be as damaging as punches. They are the favourite tool of the bullies, used often against people they regard as “different”, who do not conform to their own narrow measurements and restricted sense of “right”. More than that, words may often be the first wave of a campaign of violence and so, to ignore verbal abuse is to invite, permit or tolerate something stronger. We cannot avoid or shelve the problem. It should be confronted and documented. Well done on this!
I am inclined to think that once the genie is let out of the bottle, though, there is no getting it back, and while Trump, for instance, may not be directly responsible for all the various expressions of violence in his country, his own brand of rhetoric gives the crazy a feeling that they now have a special licence to give vent to their anger. It is time for the moderates and the kind in the Republican party to step up, because the party will not go away- it needs to be transformed ideally from the inside. We need to take responsibility for the words we utter and we need be very careful about how they might be interpreted. As the man who is running for Mayor in London, Shaun Bailey, has found, words from the past can come back and haunt us. A world where everything is digitally recorded and stored is a very dangerous place. We need to be particularly vigilant.
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