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Comment by josephcsible | Hacker News Reader

Contrast that case with this one: https://www.boredpanda.com/unflattering-donald-trump-chin-ph...

Why is it that in the former, everyone says you're a horrible person who deserves to be cancelled if you ignore the subject's wishes to not use the picture, but in the latter, everyone says it's a great thing if you ignore the subject's wishes to not use the picture?

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I love how mostly liberal(and good) viewpoints about the badness of body shaming go out the window when it comes to their enemies. Whether it was about his weight, or penis or hand size. Heck, there was even a popular statue made of a nude trump with a micropenis which people were lining up to have their picture taken with.

This is a false equivalence. The reason people make fun of Trump for being ugly is because he himself mocks others based on their appearance -- particularly women. This is akin to queer activists in the 80s outing closeted gay Republicans who were advocating for anti-gay laws.

Turnabout is fair play. If Trump doesn't want people to make fun of him for his physical qualities, he shouldn't do the same for others.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/16/us/politics/trump-women-i...

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/08/donald-trump-protest...

If you think that decency is a human right and not a privilege to be given out only the the worthy then you're a hypocrite for treating people the way they treat others.

If on the other hand you think that special grounds deserve special rights then go ahead. I have an apartheid to sell you though.

I've never heard "body shaming is bad unless you're body shaming a body shamer".

It misses the point in that there is collateral damage for body shaming as well - if you mock trump's weight because he is a bad person, you're still implying "fat=bad" to every good fat person out there too.

So am I allowed to mock those liberals physical qualities now, since they mocked trump for mocking someone's physical qualities? If they don't want to be mocked they shouldn't do the same to others.

Exceeding scope; I took your picture and used it in an ad campaign, I exceeded scope. I took your picture as president of a country and used it in a blog, I didn't.

This is a trivial discussion, but that's your answer

Because ridiculing world leaders is essential to liberty and free exercise of democracy? Especially POTUS, which is arguably the top of the heap. You don't need to agree, believe it has any merit, or anything like that. It's more important that the right exists than how it's used.

Correct answer: because one is politican and the other isn't

Real answer: because people have double, triple, multiple standards.

It actually is not great that people decided to go after Trump’s various sensitive physical traits. He’s an awful person and there are many far more substantial things to criticize him on. Making fun of his weight, even though it feels good to say negative things about a bad person, reinforces the idea that this is somehow a valid criticism.

I can see why people do it. He’s the worst, it feels good to say negative things about him. And he also has a tendency to go for shallow physical descriptions of people as criticism. So it has the feeling of “turnabout is fair play.” But it is a failure to restrain lesser instincts.

This is a good point, it may be cathartic, it may be deserved but it isn't really helpful.

Plus it brings us into the world of the crass and stupid, where Trump has the home team advantage.

I think you got downvoted because on face value that looks like a cheap shot. But in truth it does play well with Trump's fanbase when he takes aim at an opponent and starts talking smack about them publicly. Those opposed to Trump, it seems to me, tire easily of that and prefer a bit of civility, or at least the pretence of it.

So what you're saying is roughly "when you engage in petty slap-fights with Trump you kinda are playing to his strengths" - which is true.

Lena has been used for years and this use doesn't necessarily result in you being "cancelled", it might make your colleagues say "hey, can you use something other than lena?" though. The model is a pretty private figure (as she said, she’s not a model anymore) and has not given us any reason not to respect her wishes, so if she has asked the community not to then it's only decent to refrain from using her picture.

Trump is an extremely controversial person who has stirred up no end of trouble and in addition he has directed more than his own fair share of bodyshaming towards others. It does not surprise me in the slightest that people are not willing to extend him the courtesy of not sharing a picture of him that he doesn't like.

I'm not in the business of using or distributing these pictures, so I am quite happy not using either. I'm just attempting to explain why people feel this way. I personally quite like the Ethically Sourced Lena, it made me smile :)

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