Hyperbole, Overstatement, Catastrophising 2

Attacking French values

My mum used to tell my friends off if they claimed they were "starving" as her mum would not allow any exaggeration in speech. Lucewoman on The Age of Uncertainty (given as example of being middle class)
It seems that if people don’t get married, plague, famine and disaster will result. You can read the reasons for getting married here (they are sensible things like guardianship of children, inheritance and pension rights).

THE COLLAPSE OF FAMILY LIFE
Births outside marriage hit highest level for two centuries Daily Mail headline April 2011
Physical intimacy outside of marriage undermines self-esteem.
Marriage is the bedrock of society. Gay marriage will undermine true marriage, and erode society.
Pope says gay marriages “penalise” straight marriages Jan 2011
When we lose sight of the spiritual aspect of married life, or holy matrimony as it once was called, we are diminished as human beings. Guardian comment November 9, 2010

And there are all kinds of reasons why women shouldn’t wear burqas:
Covering the face is an attack on civilized norms.
"The niqab and the burqa represent a refusal to exist as a person in the eyes of others," says French parliamentary leader Jean-Francois Cope.
Journalist Christopher Hitchens calls them "the most aggressive sign of a refusal to integrate or accommodate." Chicago Tribune
French President Nicolas Sarkozy says the full veil is an "attack on French values". He also says the burka reduces women to servitude and undermined their dignity. June 22 2009
Mathieu Bock-Coté says it represents a “gross statement of denial of membership in Western society”.
Well, which is it?

These PC pests are destroying our society!

Cardinal Murphy O’Connor says atheism is “the greatest evil” at his successor’s installation, May 09.

Readers complained that a newspaper was too opinionated because it used the word “proliferate” in a headline.

But actually it’s Twitter that’s going to destroy us all:
Twitter: where those who don't conform to the wisdom of the crowd find themselves subject to increasingly frenzied attacks. Sarah Vine, Times January 19, 2011

But do these 18-year-olds, reared in the blogger-Twitter-Facebook culture, really know what the concept of privacy means? Members of their generation have grown up sharing every thought and detail of their lives with strangers. Many may now be incapable of drawing lines between private and public. Neil Steinberg in the Chicago Sun Times

It’s not just the young, said Kathleen Parker in The Washington Post. US society as a whole has witnessed a cultural breakdown in decency and a blurring of those boundaries. [We must] stop the insanity of narcissism and exhibitionism that inculcates the broader notion that nothing is off-limits.

More, much more, to come. And more here.