They are poor and lazy substitutes for digging into our minds for the appropriate and precise words that would convey the reasons for our feelings, and perhaps persuade others to join our side. Instead of making us smarter, they dumb us down. Swearing might make us feel good, but overly used, it harms us more than our intended target.
At times I’ve seen and heard Burbank residents expressing anger and frustration by calling other people Hitler, Nazi, fascist, socialist, communist, liar and so forth, and often with hollering. What the spouters and spewers don’t understand is that they are getting the opposite result from what they want.
With their uncontrolled venting, they are driving independent thinkers (and voters) to the other side. All they are saying with their inflammatory labels is, “These people are ‘bad,’ and I don’t like them.” They are demonstrating, with less-obscene swearing, that they cannot think; exhibiting that they have no convincing arguments for their side. They haven’t learned that by hollering, swearing and labeling, they are proving the shallowness of their own position.
