The word “lunatic” will be stricken from federal law under legislation that passed the House on Wednesday and is headed to President Obama for his signature.
The Congressional action is the latest effort to remove language from federal law that has become outdated or is considered demeaning. Two years ago Congress took out references to “mental retardation.”
“The term ‘lunatic’ holds a place in antiquity and should no longer have a prominent place in our U.S. code,” said Representative Robert C. Scott, Democrat of Virginia, shortly before the 398-to-1 vote in the House.
***The lone “no” vote was cast by Representative Louie Gohmert…
You’d think he’d be happy to no longer be stigmatized. Although, then again, crazy people, much like stupid people, don’t recognize they are crazy (or stupid). That’s a burden the rest of has to bear.
Corner Stone
Did they also vote to strike the definition for “lack of self-awareness”?
gbear
Louie didn’t want the government to take away his Pink Floyd records.
TheMightyTrowel
The lone “no” vote was cast by Representative Louie Gohmert…
Christ. the jokes just write themselves.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Lunatic Louie knows that the word has meaning, especially among his fellow lunatics in Texas.
Good for him! He has embraced his inner lunatic.
Schlemizel
I don’t know – if every other gooper voted for this bill there has to be something wrong with it. Anything Batshit Bachmann and King of the Assholes support must be a real piece of shit
cathyx
But if they strike that word, how will we describe the republicans?
Johannes
The lunatic really is in the House…
gbear
I had to go see if Bachmann chickened out on that vote and, sure enough, she did. She just can’t vote for anything that Democrats would vote for. For having such a big mouth, she’s a total fucking coward and a slacker.
redshirt
It’s racism against Moon-Americans, and so Louie’s for it.
arguingwithsignposts
@cathyx: Republicans. Synonym for lunatic.
Felonius Monk
Little Louie, the short Texan who couldn’t find his ass with two hands and a flashlight was heard to say after the vote:
“Yesterday I couldn’t spell loonatick, today I are one.”
cathyx
@arguingwithsignposts: If you look up the word republican in the dictionary, there’s a picture of a lunatic with it.
The disabled guy
And yet “mental retardation” is STILL used in Social Security’s Listing of Impairments. Still a ways to go.
danielx
gohmert: synonym for lunatic
“Did you see the article about that gohmert who tried to hang glide off the Golden Gate?”
PurpleGirl
I wonder what the work to search out and change wording is going to cost, if they are changing wording retroactively. Or was the bill written that it is only from this point forward that certain words can’t be used?
Quaker in a Basement
Man has to stick up for his constituency.
trollhattan
Heh, indoozle, Mistah Louie, he don’t do irony.
SiubhanDuinne
Why in the world would Heath Shuler not cast a vote? He’s a lame duck, it’s not like he’s going to be primaried in 2014. I don’t get it.
arguingwithsignposts
@SiubhanDuinne: He’s a
lunaticidiot?different-church-lady
Lunatics themselves, however, will still be allowed to take seats in Congress…
Felonius Monk
Since this thread concerns Clown Shoes and Teabagger Stupidity has anyone entertained this thought:
Grifter Grover Norquist had a tantrum the other day and said that TeaParty2 is coming soon and will be super awesome in its power. Then Grifter Dick Armey takes his $8M cut from Freedomwerkz and declares himself a free agent. Is it possible that these two assholes of ill repute are planning to join forces and create Grifter Grover and Grifter Dick’s Most Awesome TeaBag2 Clown Show and Donor Fleecing Flea Circus? If so, this could be fun.
arguingwithsignposts
@Felonius Monk: That actually makes sense. I don’t know if “fun” would be the word I would use, however. I would prefer both of those mendacious assholes to disappear and never be heard from again, unless it was at an appeals hearing for their sentence for treason.
redshirt
@Felonius Monk: LOL. This time Fox is just gonna say “Fuck it” and CGI in huge crowds for their otherwise sparsely attended rallies. Who’s gonna call ’em out? Who cares if they get called out? Not Fox viewers.
1badbaba3
We want Little Louie on that wall. We need Little Louie on that wall.
Felonius Monk
@arguingwithsignposts:
Gian
I wonder about whether changing the names used really has any long term impact. WHen my kids get older I’ll probably find out if developmentaly disabled has become the insult that retarded was previously.
But I also figure that it can’t hurt to try and change a few attitudes.
This kind of change happens a few people at a time and grows until most of the non-jerks are on board.
J.D. Rhoades
There is still a large, gilt-edged, leather-bound tome in the basement of my courthouse marked “LUNACY DOCKET.” It contains records from back in the day of what are now politely called “civil commitments”.
I always wanted to be in a band called “Lunacy Docket.”
Felonius Monk
@J.D. Rhoades:
? Martin
Wait, maybe Gohmert is self-aware and thought they were voting to strike lunatics from government, and wondered why the other lunatics voted in favor of having themselves thrown out of office?
AnotherBruce
@Gian: Developmentally disabled is a term that has been around at least 30 years. I worked with a population in the early eighties and that’s what was used.
Villago Delenda Est
Representative of the batshit insane?
Bobby Thomson
@1badbaba3:
FTFY
Lancelot Link
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Lunatic Louie has earned that new nickname all by himself, bless his lil’ heart.
Mike in NC
Dream Team for the GOP in 2016: DeMint/Gohmert
J.D. Rhoades
@Felonius Monk:
Either one. You say tomayto…
gnomedad
Probably fancied himself fighting a lonely battle against political correctness. Sphincter.
Baud
To be fair, Obama probably supports this bill, so Gohmert is the one GOP House member being principled here.
redshirt
“Give ’em Hell Louie!” shouts some half toothless coot in a dusty trailer.
mai naem
@SiubhanDuinne: Heath Shuler is probably in meetings with Duke Energy officials making sure that he’s doing whatever he needs to do for them in the Fiscal Cliff negotiations so that his lobbying gig in January is secure. He doesn’t have time for silly little stuff like taking lunatic off government related docs.
Louie “Gaw-lee” Gomer probably has a problem with taking Negro off any government docs.
1badbaba3
@Bobby Thomson: That is a correct answer. Our Judges say under the wall would also be acceptable.
lacp
When I read this kind of thing, I try to envision what sort of people vote for a Gohmert or whoever. And I never succeed.
Sm*t Cl*de
Compton Mackenzie has a sad.
Shalimar
I was listening to this on the way home from work, and Louie said the reason we need to keep the term is to describe all the other members of Congress who won’t deal with the fiscal cliff the way he wants them to. So basically, this wonderfully self-aware man thinks everyone is crazy but him.
Calouste
@mai naem:
Yeah, that is where my money is as well. Too busy lining up his next gig to vote on anything not related to said next gig.
Gian
@AnotherBruce:
I was so much younger then, I remember the r-word being used as an insult, as well as references to a local center that worked with people with the disability.
I just being somewhat existentialist. Satre famously wrote “if the jew did not exist the anti-semite would invent him”
well lord of the flies plus existentialist. kids can be damn cruel and if they want to insult another kid I wonder if they’ll adapt.
(it was a lil more than 30 years ago, and I did live in a town of 4400 on well water with no cable tv, so my kid experiences may be non-typical, err are not typical)
We’ve tried our best to train our kids – who are still young to be nice – and they have a cousin they’ve spent some time with who is austistic and has seizures – I’m waiting for the sensitive one to come home and tells us what the insults of the day are. Mostly he complains about people who don’t want to play the same games during recess he does. the three year old complains about mean girls at preschool
all the talk about name calling mean kids fits right into the modern GOP though.
pseudonymous in nc
It’s remarkable how much vestigial shit exists in US law. I’m sure that commenters here who came to the US from Foreign and have had to deal with the legislative clusterfuck that is US immigration law have noted how various bits of the process are basically stuck in the 1950s in terms of their definitions of conditions and practices that render someone inadmissible.
Less Popular Tim
@Gian: This, maybe. I remember a few years back reading about the mid-20th-century closure of an “Institution for Half-Wits, Morons, and other Mental Deficients” or something appalling like that, in Minnesota. I don’t think it was named by Drs., or using the DSM-0 or anything, but these used to be “clinical” terms. Call it “slur inflation.”
Joey Maloney
@danielx: Don’t you think “gohmert” sounds more like it should be a synonym for “dumbass”, though? Your sentence works either way, I’m just saying.
JGabriel
__
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pseudonymous in nc:
A friend was just telling me yesterday how he had to promise not to support the Communist Party of America when he became a citizen. Not in the oath, of course, but apparently it’s still part of the paperwork.
.
Raven
@JGabriel: You have to sign a loyalty oath to the state and the US go to work for the GEORGIA government!
Raven
3. Are you now or have you been within the last ten (10) years a member of any organization which to your knowledge at the time of membership advocates or has as one of its objectives, the overthrow of the government of the United States or the government of the State of Georgia by force or violence? Yes No If “Yes,” state the name of the organization and your past and present membership status including any offices held therein.
Patricia Kayden
@Felonius Monk: Hahahahahaha! Probably true, though.
Randy P
@Raven: Wouldn’t Tea Partiers be obligated to say “yes” to that?
mellowjohn
to paraphrase “a fish called wanda”: to call louie gohmert stupid would be an insult to stupid people.
Just One More Canuck
@Less Popular Tim: that’s what they used to call the RNC?
brantl
If there were cosmic justice, the sound of the word irony would be exactly the same as the sound of the wind, whistling through one of Gohmert’s ears to the other.
Elizabelle
@Joey Maloney:
Gohmert sounds like “varmint” to me.
His constituents, and Michelle Bachmann’s, have some ‘splainin’ to do.
Woodrowfan
@gnomedad: I bet you’re right. He’s continuing the brave fight against Political Correctness! (of course what we now call Political Correctness used to be called “being polite”)
Fort Geek
@Less Popular Tim: “Institution for Half-Wits, Morons, and other Mental Deficients” sounds like the (R) side of Congress. And some of the (D)s.
aimai
@Gian:
They are already adapting on the word “homo”-a very common substitute is now the word “hobo.” Its just kind of an all purpose insult with no implication of effeminacy or anything specific to gayness or hobo-ness/homelessness. But I’m pretty sure that it is a kind of semi sly subversion–a kind of in your face inversion of the forbidden word, kind of like cockney rhyming slang or thieve’s cant.
On the website-from-which-I-was-just-banned, Dealing with In Laws and Family of Origin, calling someone the “r” or even using it in a discussion of family dynamics (“My mother in law called my child retarded”) is considered a form of hate speech and is banned just like the N word and also, to my amusement, words like “red neck” even when the poster is applying it proudly to herself and her culture.
aimai
SenyorDave
Louie is that perfect combination of crazy and stupid that so rarely comes together in just the right proportion. I always wonder whether he is truly representative of his constituency (a scary thought), or if he just brings home the bacon and people assume he’s better than any other alternative.
Woodrowfan
@aimai: ohhh, there’s a story here! Where did you get banned? I could make a guess but it might start a flame war…
(and for the record, anyone who’d ban you is a weenie, IMHO)
aimai
I got banned from Dealing with the In Laws and Family of Origin–that’s actually the name of the website. Its kind of an odd place but I miss it and its quite eye opening about the state of familial dysfunction and misery in the US and, oddly, in Dubai, Canada and Australia.
aimai
Woodrowfan
Aimai, oops, sorry, I thought that was just a fanciful nickname sort of like “The great orange satan” is for Dkos. Oh well, i am sorry you were banned. Their loss…
Matt McIrvin
@Gian: There’s certainly a euphemism treadmill in which neutral terms rapidly turn into insults referring to the stigmatized population. “Idiot”, “imbecile” and “moron” were mainstream technical terms many decades ago; “mentally retarded” was one when I was a kid.
But that doesn’t mean that replacing the terms is useless. I figure changing terminology every few decades to avoid insulting people in every sentence we use is a small price to pay.
Interrobang
@Less Popular Tim: The actual technical term for that sort of thing in linguistics is “pejorization.” Which sort of sounds like an insult itself, but it’s the verb form of “pejorative.”
You’re welcome. Isn’t the euphemism treadmill fun?
ottercliff
OK, now I understand why Jim DeMint had to quit.
Tonal Crow
Double grammar fail.
Another Halocene Human
@Less Popular Tim: clinical !== scientific, or useful
“clinical” gives us stuff like backcracking (and sudden strokes and deaths in healthy young people as the result of cervical manipulation)
We’re better off leaving all of that in the past.
Another Halocene Human
@Raven: 3. Are you now or have you been within the last ten (10) years a member of any organization which to your knowledge at the time of membership advocates or has as one of its objectives, the overthrow of the government of the United States or the government of the State of Georgia by force or violence? Yes No If “Yes,” state the name of the organization and your past and present membership status including any offices held therein.
Hrm, um, erm, the Democratic Party?
Oh, “by force or violence”. By force–of votes!
Jay C
Obviously, Louie was taking this legislation personally…