Intellectual Honesty Test. Would you have been offended by "86-46" jargon thrown around a year ago?

[EarlG]

65. I'm generally not a fan of excessive violent imagery when discussing politics

People "eviscerating," "destroying," "annihilating," one another, etc. It's rampant in the political video space. But to be honest, it's more because these days that phraseology just feels like a lazy grab for views, rather than something offensively violent.

In fact in some ways, associating these words with politics may have made them seem less aggressive, particularly in the right context. These days when I see a headline that says, "Rachel Maddow eviscerates Politician X" the image that immediately springs to mind is of Maddow delivering a sensible and thoughtful monologue which uses hard facts to point out Politician X's inadequacies in a direct fashion. I don't imagine Maddow shoving a blade into Politician X's stomach and disemboweling him.

The language of war is often interchangeable with the language of politics, and context is hugely important. When a politician says "We need to fight" in the context of winning an election, that's one thing. When a politician says "We need to fight" in the context of storming the Capitol Building, that's another thing.

So how far do we take this? For example, if I look up the word "beat" on Merriam-Webster's site, here are the first few definitions:

1 : to strike repeatedly:
a : to hit repeatedly so as to inflict pain

2 a: to drive or force by blows
beat back his attackers
b: to pound into a powder, paste, or pulp

Then a bit further down:

4 a: overcome, defeat
beat the insurgents in a bloody battle
beating your opponent in chess

If someone posts on social media, "We need to beat Donald Trump," it's most likely that they mean we need to defeat him at the next election. They don't mean "we need to strike Donald Trump repeatedly so as to inflict pain. "

So I kinda feel like we're just quibbling over the definitions of words and their common usage. As far as I know -- and it seems from many responses I've read that this is the case -- "86" is absolutely in common usage as a word meaning "to get rid of" in a way that doesn't have to be violent. You may have a different reaction to it if your understanding of the word is different. But as far as I can tell, posting "8647" (or "8646" or whatever) seems to be roughly on par with saying that a politician needs to be "beaten."

(PS. Edited to add, I realized I already replied to your post previously. Apologies if I gave the impression that I'm piling on, that wasn't my intent.)