Keep that in mind as the revisionist history begins emerging from some quarters -- i.e., our patiently brilliant president once again demonstrates his mastery of n-dimensional policy chess. This may end up coming out “right,” in the sense that the U.S. will have been delivered a face-saving way to back down from a threat on which Obama never seriously intended to make good, and Syria may give up some of its chemical weapons, forcing the government to rely on unreliable methods such as bullets to slaughter thousands of its own citizens.
But if it does turn out “well,” this will be because the president was lucky, not brilliant...Hmmm, where I have I heard this argument before? Ah yes --"Jane Galt," January 2007*, talking about Iraq not going the way she expected:
Human beings tend to judge failure or success by outcome, rather than process. It’s an easy heuristic, but as in so many things, the easy way out is often disastrous.
This has not convinced me of the brilliance of the doves, because precisely none of the ones that I argued with predicted that things would go wrong in the way they did. If you get the right result, with the wrong mechanism, do you get credit for being right, or being lucky?Everyone gets a little peeved at pundits who are spectacularly wrong and proceed blithely as if they hadn't been, but after this, I'm actually grateful that they don't take the time to explain why other people were only right because of luck, or why right is wrong, etc.
(*Sorry for the indirect link -- McArdle has wisely memory-holed [or, as we like to say around here, Sullivaned] her old posts.)
Does this revisionist history include the articles about Obama and Putin discussing all this for months? (Or have I misread about that?)
ReplyDeleteKind of a dumb day for righties to be complaining about revisionism, too. Have there been any "Bush kept us safe" stories yet?
if Obama's ploy works out the way some people think it's going to, it won't count because no fair:
ReplyDeleteOooh, that perfidious negro, using his superior intellect to finagle a win-win result! Oh, how we hates him and curses him!
Shorter McArdle Bargle: "The president had unprotected sex when he didn't wash his hands before replacing his faulty O-rings, and now he's being a big meanie to the right and I still can't get pregnant. Please take me syriasly.Take me, Syrias!"
ReplyDeleteA lot of classics from the Warblogger era seem to vanishing down the ol' memory hole. Kim du Toit's "The Pussification of the American Male" and Steven den Beste's "Only The Las Vegas Stripper That I Keep Handing Five Dollar Bills To Really Understands Me, And It's All Feminism's Fault" (or whatever it was called) are extremely difficult to track down in their full, unexpergated form. Odd, since they were clearly written to ring on down through the ages.
ReplyDeleteSeems to me we can thank the British Parliament for refusing to go along with missile and bombing attacks in the first place.
ReplyDeletehttp://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/29/20241897-british-parliament-votes-against-possible-military-action-in-syria?lite
~
Happy 9-11 Day, people!
ReplyDeletehttp://imgur.com/a/cEPuE
~
we should not applaud the muddled thought process by which the president almost got us into a military action that no one wanted.
ReplyDeleteI believe this is the first time I've ever seen McArdle express disdain for for a muddled thought process. Pity she couldn't bring herself to oppose the deceitful process by which a president actually did get us into a military action that no one should have wanted.
Arglebargle is a professional nit-picker who has no idea what a "nit" is, does or looks like.
ReplyDeleteThat's a bit specious.
ReplyDeleteThey couldn't have refused to go along with attacks unless and until attacks were on the table.
Just as, had Obama been issuing weekly demands for Syria to get rid of their chemical weapons from the start of the conflict, it wouldn't have happened without the threat of force.
Do you get credit for being right, or being lucky?
ReplyDeletei'll go with Woody Allen: You get 80% for showing up. This is an alien concept for Megan.
IOKIYAR (which is probably her D.C. personalized license plate).
ReplyDeleteTheir "thought" process, if it can be called that, is pretty hilarious.
ReplyDeleteIt's as if, as I pointed out above, they want to believe that the threat of military action had nothing, nothing I tell you!, to do with where we are now. I suppose in their muddled minds, if Obama had simply had the bright idea to demand that Assad give up the weapons a couple of years ago, then things never would have come to this pass. It's a fantasy which completely glosses over the obstructionism of the Russians and the Chinese.
I discovered yesterday that there's a place on the internets with commenters even dumber than youtube - that would be comments on the Yahoo news feed. Over there, the moron conservatives (about 95% of the commenters) were high-fiving each other on how Putin had "made Obama his bitch" and how much they'd rather have HIM as president, and other equally retarded man-on-the-street opinionating. That is, their belief is that Putin applied pressure to bail out Obama politically, when I think it's pretty clear that Putin has no love for our president; it never occurred to them that Putin, like most politicians, is looking out for his political fortunes and those of his country first and foremost. And when it looked like the US might get involved in even some limited way, he pretty clearly didn't like the prospects of what the consequences might be for him or for Russia.
Certainly he wasn't trying to do anything to rein in his Syrian client before the prospect of US bombs raining down on Syria was raised. He's had 2-1/2 years to apply pressure if he wanted to, and then, as now, his country is the more powerful one of the two. So we have to conclude that if he wasn't applying pressure then, it's because he didn't see the need to do it.
McMegan is precious enough when she tries to do simple computation; this latest incarnation of McMegan as psychic, who has the ability to peer into the president's mind and therefore to know that a diplomatic solution wasn't even in his thoughts as a possible outcome of the threat of force, is a real hoot.
It that some sort of kitchen gadget?
ReplyDeleteHuman beings tend to judge failure or success by outcome, rather than process. It’s an easy heuristic, but as in so many things, the easy way out is often disastrous.
ReplyDeleteI like this sentence because it reminds me of my single favorite McArglebargle- the time she threw a tantrum because Sex at Dawn came to conclusions that contradicted her assumptions about human nature.
No, it's a bloodsucking parasite, much like McArglebargle herself.
ReplyDeleteThey love Putin the way Whitaker Chambers and Ayn Rand loved Stalin. The politics may be a little fluid, but what really counts is the willingness to murder, and to be in your face about it. I think a mass exodus of Republicans to Russia is a splendid idea, especially since they'd blend in well with a population that's grown accustomed to eating shit:
ReplyDeletehttp://thisruthlessworld.wordpress.com/2013/07/12/the-cadaver-synod/#more-965
Good idea! Mostly, they're used to comb crabs out of your pubes. But with a little modification, you could use them to tease stray crystals of pink Himalayan salt.from a sweater.
ReplyDeleteShorter MeMeMeMeMeMeMeMegan: "lefties are always wrong, even when they're right."
ReplyDeleteNow, as I recall, in the lead-up to that, umm, previous war of which McArgleBargle approved, the anti-war crowd was saying, in essence, "this is going to cause a lot of innocent people to get killed (check), will destabilize the region (check) and will result in a giant sectarian clusterfuck and de facto civil war (check)."
In fact, it was even worse than that, since it exposed the U.S. military and intelligence agencies as serial torturers and war criminals, thus erasing what little remaining credibility the U.S. had as a moral force in the world. In short, those prognostications were accurate in terms of both process and outcome, and the results were even worse than anticipated by anti-war factions. The right-wingers, however, were saying it would be a "cakewalk," that U.S. troops would be "greeted as liberators," and that the invasion "would pay for itself" with oil revenues, none of which were true beyond perhaps the first two days after taking Baghdad--when the looting started.
So, once again, MeMeMeMeMeMeMeMegan gets it wrong for entirely personal and partisan reasons, thus furthering the impression that getting it wrong is her oeuvre.
Rarely is the question asked: WHO GIVES A FUCK WHAT AN ECONO-BLOGGER SAYS ABOUT POLITICS. I'm sorry--am I shouting? It's just that I'm so het up and excited, waiting to hear Megan's picks for the AFC East this year.
ReplyDeleteOh, Jesus. You shoulda asked me first - NEVER read comments at Yahoo.
ReplyDeleteWE are the knights who pick NITS.
ReplyDeleteWicked, tricksy, false! We hates 'Bamanses forever!
ReplyDeleteThis would actually work a treat in California, which uses seven alphanumerics, tops.
ReplyDeleteI want to drink heavily in the company of this comment until I (feel I) understand it completely.
ReplyDeleteSadly, even "econo-blogger" is really, really stretching it to the breaking point. Saying that MeMeMeMeMeMeMegan is an economist is a lot like saying that Looney Louie Gohmert is a respected politician.
ReplyDeleteSimply amazing.
ReplyDeleteMcArdle just implied that Obama should bomb Syria, should not bomb Syria, never intended to bomb Syria, and that luckily his intentions to bomb Syria were thwarted. And all of that in the same breath!
Perhaps she is not the best person to judge whether Obama's thought process is muddled.
Your proposed course of action is commensurate with how the original post was conceived.
ReplyDelete(And just once I'd like to read a truthful preamble from McArdle at the head of whatever claptrap she's posting that says something like, "despite being blasted out of my ever-lovin' mind on wine/drugs/libertarian dildos/special spatula spinning, this is my assignment and I completed it on time (Hic!)"
Has anyone made an archive of these things? Useful for blackmail or masochism.
ReplyDeleteHer response to people pointing out that the anti-war crowd was actually correct about much of the outcome of that war was to say that pacifists are opposed to all wars, so their views on this particular war were simply a default position, and therefore do not count.
ReplyDeleteHuman beings tend to judge failure or success by outcome, rather than
ReplyDeleteprocess. It’s an easy heuristic, but as in so many things, the easy way
out is often disastrous.
Huh! Then the fact that McArdle writes for "respected" publications (outcome), should in no way suggest that she knows what she's doing (process), and it would be "disastrous" for anyone to think otherwise. This sentence is a cri de cour!
Bliekker
It's not specious. If Britain's Parliament hadn't done what it did, we would have already launched our attack. It was only their refusal to go along that led to Obama's decision to involve Congress.
ReplyDeleteIf Obama wants to police up war criminals, there are plenty in this country that he's been protecting. He wouldn't even have to get the military involved.
P.S. I'm outsourcing my thoughts on last night's speech to Digby.
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2013/09/incoherent-speechifying.html
~
In other, yet related news, Tina Brown has left the Daily Beast in search of yet another publication to fuck up.
ReplyDelete~
More like a cri de cul.
ReplyDelete"Oh, who cares about outcomes? Win-Loss ratios? That's the easy way out. The proper way to judge an NFL franchise is by process."
ReplyDeleteOver there, the moron conservatives (about 95% of the commenters) were high-fiving each other on how Putin had "made Obama his bitch" and how much they'd rather have HIM as president,
ReplyDeleteWell, yeah, Putin's white.
I'll go with Yogi Berra: I'd rather be lucky than good.
ReplyDeleteLibertarian Dildos would be a good name for a band.
ReplyDelete"This has not convinced me of the brilliance of the doves, because precisely none of the ones that I argued with predicted that things would go wrong in the way they did."
ReplyDeleteThat's because your stuffed animals do not speak for most of the doves. Among sentient beings, almost all the "doves" I spoke to or read were warning about the possibility of a Sunni/Sh'ia civil war.
But perhaps that's not the negative outcome you associate with Iraq. I'm thinking looking like an idiot is the major negative outcome of the war to you. I hate to be the one to break it to you*, but you were universally regarded as an idiot before the war.
*not actually true
Human beings tend to judge failure or success by outcome
ReplyDeleteYes, people do tend to judge failure or success by whether the outcome fails or is successful.
At the roulette table, she bets on red AND black so that she can always win. The croupiers trade looks...
ReplyDeleteAnd his nipples are perky!
ReplyDeleteThe same argument served to explain why all the peoplpe who warned in advance of a market collapse deserve no credit for being right, while people (such as herself) who denied the possibility of a market collapse even while it was happening deserve no blame for being wrong.
ReplyDelete"Process" here fills the same role as "Divine grace" in theology, as an explanation why good deeds or successful outcomes are not the way to salvation.
ReplyDeleteThis being 9/11, the plethoratic myriadnes of our great leader's wisdomish have been ringing in the empty chambers of my mind all day:
ReplyDelete"I'm the commander -- see, I don't need to explain -- I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being president." --as quoted in Bob Woodward's Bush at War
"Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties." --discussing the Iraq war with Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson in 2003, as quoted by Robertson
"I think I was unprepared for war." –on the biggest regret of his presidency, ABC News interview, Dec. 1, 2008
"The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq were the ones who attacked us in America on September the 11th." --Washington, D.C., July 12, 2007
"I am here to make an announcement that this Thursday, ticket counters and airplanes will fly out of Ronald Reagan Airport." --Washington, D.C., Oct. 3, 2001
"You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror." --interview with CBS News' Katie Couric, Sept. 6, 2006
"I will not withdraw, even if Laura and Barney are the only ones supporting me." --talking to key Republicans about Iraq, as quoted by Bob Woodward
Libertarian dildos would be utterly useless, since libertarians are unconcerned with anyone else's pleasure, and dildos are inanimate and therefore, cannot experience pleasure themselves.
ReplyDelete... forcing the government to rely on unreliable methods such as bullets to slaughter thousands of its own citizens.
ReplyDeleteLook, if it's good enough for the NRA it should be good enough for you.
How do you remember this shit, Roy? I can barely remember what I had for breakfast, much less locate one of Megan's effusions from years ago.
ReplyDeleteI've always wanted to hear Kim pronounce "du Toit."
ReplyDeleteGreat t-shirts even if the demo disc sucks
ReplyDeleteI was thinking cri de other-word-that-begins-with-c, which I won't use because I know it will upset aimai.
ReplyDeleteShe comes from a long line of theologically intimidating Presbyterians.
ReplyDeleteWell I guess we do hatess him, we doess.
ReplyDeleteCan I get an evo psych link to this assertion? Because otherwise it strikes me as question begging and special pleading and maybe whining.
ReplyDeleteBut its been trademarked by the entire Republican Party.
ReplyDeleteJeez, coozledad, that linked article is heart-breaking.
ReplyDeleteI larfed.
ReplyDeletewhut? No, really, whut?
ReplyDelete"[she] has no idea what a "nit" is"
ReplyDeleteReally? Because I believe she regularly matches wits with one.
Cri-du-chat. I knew that.
ReplyDeleteNuh-UH. No way. Not having that discussion again.
ReplyDeleteWill you settle for "tautological"?
ReplyDeleteShe's going with the Baltimore Colts. (Because her version of history is wrong about everything else.)
ReplyDeleteDamn, you beat me to it. I was just coming down here to make that joke.
ReplyDeleteI am sincerely confused. I think I should apologize on general principles.
ReplyDeleteGerard van der Leun remains on record.
ReplyDeleteI think the line is "80 percent is showing up" not that you get 80 percent credit. Basically, you get no credit whatever you do. But there is some residual 20 percent of something that you still have to do once you show up.
ReplyDeleteNone needed. Just don't want to open that can of worms again. Let's just say it's a word that I have argued can have some use, if only to express virulence of feeling against the one to whom it's applied, while you were of the opinion it should never be used.
ReplyDeleteOh, so not "cookie?" then? You are sweet. I hope I haven't cramped your style. I think I would have objected again but possibly because I don't want to think that something I share in common with McCardle, other than bipedalism, could be used as an insult.
ReplyDeleteI missed my chance to say evoo psych, which no doubt is the only kind Megan lets in her kitchen.
ReplyDeleteHmmm...not sure on this one...I'm pretty sure McMegan would at least pretend that Rachel Ray is too "downmarket" for her taste.
ReplyDeleteNo shit. It's Generation Brawndo over there, all the way.
ReplyDeleteWhat i get from that article is Russia is basically somebody's terribly abused child that is going to fuck shit up. I can't imagine that as an integral part of geopolitical theater, even though we're already there.
ReplyDeleteSucks..
Take my advice and skip the live show. They stop every song halfway and try to extort more money from the crowd.
ReplyDeleteAnd here I thought they were just having problems with open tunings.
ReplyDeleteAnd comes out on the losing end.
ReplyDeleteIdea: propose to whoever is in charge at NRO that they hire Tina Brown to take over K-Lo's job. Or Jonah's. Or anyone's. Just get her on staff and let her work her magic.
ReplyDeleteThe cover with William Buckley backing his arse up to Jonah Goldberg and poking his tongue out is going to be a collector's item.
ReplyDelete"Doo Toyt."
ReplyDeleteOk, I LOL'd.
ReplyDeleteOn the off chance that this never happens, we should ask one of the resident p-shop wizards to make sure that it does, even if it's not "for reals."
Human beings tend to judge failure or success by outcome, rather than process.
ReplyDeleteBalls of fire, a libertarian is complaining about this? Someone who believes that your worth as a person is tied to the size of your hedge fund is whining that they're not getting enough credit for their hypothetical moral victory? Jeezus, Megan, did you sell your self-awareness to the highest bidder in exchange for your career?
You're assuming that she had any to sell.
ReplyDelete"Human beings tend to judge failure or success by outcome..."
ReplyDeleteSays Megan, who by her own statement is clearly not a human being. Funny, I always thought "success" and "failure" WERE outcomes.
Equal temperament and just intonation both ignore the reality that some of us are superior to others.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't be too sure. Her kitchen gift lists are always a weird mix of "Look at me, the rich gourmet!" and "As Seen on TV" products.
ReplyDeleteAnd here I thought the policy with Obama was never to bet on black.
ReplyDelete"Arglebargument". I LOVE IT.
ReplyDeleteWere I to be pedantic (heaven forbid), the situation in real life is that people judge failure or success according to the person involved.* If it's your failure, or that of a friend, or the success of that guy you don't like, then the whole process is clearly dominated by luck or outside forces, and the outcome should be ignored.
ReplyDeleteWere we in the same band?
ReplyDeleteNominating Substance McGravitas for the task.
ReplyDeleteBa-dum-bump!
ReplyDeleteW'all, to the extent that self-conceit can be seen as self-awareness....
ReplyDeleteThe croupiers trade looks...
ReplyDeleteBut it is her dad's casino after all.
"I think I was unprepared for war." –on the biggest regret of his presidency, ABC News interview, Dec. 1, 2008
ReplyDeleteThe words "no shit, Sherlock" come to mind.
Re: that high bidder: They do say a fool and his money are soon parted.
ReplyDeleteYou'd be surprised how common that argument is among people who should know better.
ReplyDeleteThere was a classic swipe of TS Eliot--"The Love Song of J. Alfred Goldstein" or something very similar--at a blog called (I believe) Creek Running North, which the proprietor took down in disgust that it was the only thing most people were logging on to read.
ReplyDeleteI picture his apartment looking like Leonard's (Memento) hotel room.
ReplyDelete"The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq were the ones who attacked us in America on September the 11th." --Washington, D.C., July 12, 2007
ReplyDeleteOh, so Bush is one of those folks who think the US conspired to make 9/11 happen, eh? (or was he referring to the other folks bombing the other innocent people? I'm confused, as usual.
IOKIYAR(OL(BRR,IYKWIMAITYD)
ReplyDelete...(Or Libertarian, (But Really Republican, If You Know What I Mean And I Think You Do)
Yahoo is my decoy email to draw the junk mail, so I am also exposed to their "news" feed, and occasionally the headline will be so outrageously provocative that I will break my oath and click through and see what the story is really about, only to be blinded by the comments.
ReplyDeleteI spend the next half hour or so blinking away the "floaters" clouding my vision. It's a pain in the ass--can't drive, read, or do anything productive until they pass.
Well, in her defense, she does claim to favor "process" over "outcome," so it is irrelevant that they were wrong on all counts--their process was FAB-ulous!
ReplyDeleteme, too--excellent!
ReplyDeleteThat should join the ranks of neologisms like Santorum.
Yeah, when the christers realized folks could be good without their patriarchal authoritarianism, they had to come up with bullshit like "the road to H-E-doublehockeysticks is paved with Good Intentions," which was a giant red flag to young Cole.
ReplyDeleteHer koan is meant to inspire meditation on existence, not make actual sense or anything. duh.
ReplyDeleteThat's true--in a competitive market, success or failure are relative conditions.
ReplyDeleteWhich reminds me--about a year ago I had occasion to "overnight" in DC for a one-day seminar. Check into my hotel, walk down the street, and what do I see? The Cato Institute. They were having a party. So I goose-step by, slowly, right arm outstretched. (Every little bit helps.)
ReplyDeleteObama Derangement syndrome. She haz a terminal case.
ReplyDeleteHuman beings tend to judge failure or success by outcome, rather than
ReplyDeleteprocess. It’s an easy heuristic, but as in so many things, the easy way
out is often disastrous.
This is what they teach you in business school, right? "It's not my fault. And I can prove it, by deploying the word heuristic." Bonus PowerPoints for emphasizing how you aren't taking the easy way out.
You can't leave us hanging, what was their reaction?
ReplyDeleteCri de cracker?
ReplyDeleteCri de cretin?
cri de Crotchgoblin?
cri de Constaniople?
cri de bought and paid for propagandist who isn't even very good at her job?
The Batcave; the giant penny has Jonah Goldberg's face on it.
ReplyDeleteI don't care to wade too deeply into the weeds on this, because at this point it is hopefully a moot point BUT...the claim that if Parliament hadn't done what it did we would have already launched our attack is itself a bit specious, unless of course you can provide some evidence of what was going on inside Obama's mind at precisely the point in time that he asked Congress to consider the issue. I.E. that claim rests on an assumption that Parliament's vote was the ONLY reason Obama asked for Congressional approval. There are other theories that can just as easily explain his request for Congress to consider the question, including those he stated at the time. To restate what I said in the back and forth on the previous thread on this topic, while past experience shows us that we should critically consider calls for military action in all cases, it does not automatically follow that every time military action is proposed that the person proposing it is lying or has evil motive. Sorry, but that's what your analysis looks like to me - something that starts from the premise of Obama being a liar or generally dishonest person in all situations.
ReplyDeleteAs for "policing up war criminals" there's no doubt we have plenty of them running around free on cable news in this country. But his stated goal with the proposed action was not to "police war criminals" but to punish the use of chemical weapons and prevent their use again in the future in the Syrian conflict, and your alternative action doesn't fit with that goal. For the record, I would be supportive of your alternative action, but I can pretty easily see how it fails to meet the goals he's focused on in this case.
Y'all had an argument over "cri de couer"? C'mon, kiss and make up.
ReplyDeleteIndeed.
ReplyDeleteI think that the du Toits sort of went off the map after they became simply too embarrassing even to other warbloggers. I know, mind-blowing concept, right?
ReplyDeleteEgotistical people will attribute their own success solely to hard work, and the success of others solely to luck, even if the evidence strongly suggests otherwise. That's all you ever need to know about McArdle.
ReplyDeleteWhat about Paula Deen? I'm thinking of Megan's infamous mac-n-cheese recipe, which was so jam-packed full of dairy products that it may have been difficult to find the pasta in the finished dish.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the sound of one hand typing drippy propaganda?
ReplyDeleteI find arguing with ITTDGY not useful because the basic fact is that, yes, he/she believes, au fond, that Obama is a blood soaked murderer who is only restrained from perpetual war by his incompetence.
ReplyDeleteI have plenty of disagreements with Obama on both policy and tactics but I think it should be obvious that he is not at all interested in big swinging dick politics or the murder of civilians. He may be a centrist, and he may be unable to end the rule of the security state and the military industrial complex, but he is not at all a macho fantasist who tried to become president in order to kill people. There's no point arguing about it because its not a rational belief. Its just a sick fantasy. Outsource it all you want to Digby, who I generally respect and have exchanged email with a few times, but Obama is neither a fool nor an asshole with delusions of murderous grandeur.
He may have thought it necessary or expedient to threatent to bomb syria under the circumstances but there is no reason to believe that absent the parliamentary vote "we would be bombing right now." Obama has always sought diplomatic solutions to everything--fuck he seeks diplomatic solutions to problems with his own republican enemies. Using a carrot and stick approach to diplomacy and military issues is not an aberration and really can't be construed as a failure on his part. Its just the way he does government.
I think she's just riffing at that point. A Russian wondering what the fuck is up with Russians.
ReplyDeleteMaybe that piece grabs me because I'm from North Carolina.
The downside is: she would be so proud. I hate to say that for a few days I've been watching Suits, the perfectly cromulent TV equivalent of muzak crossed with valium and a light shot of caffeine. (It should actually be called "Handbags" because most of the women come equipped with designer handbags large and pointless enough to stash a maserati in. But I digress).
ReplyDeleteAt any rate, and for anyone who has seen the show, I've discovered more and more people who are essentially Lewis Litt. I feel that if Megan had a term like arglebarglement designed for her she'd go all Sally Fields "You like me! You really like me!" And I would kill myself, or rather smut clyde, to prevent that woman from having one moment's (more) self satisfaction.
The entire of modern US evangelicalism seems to be focused on the theory that things which are good: empathy, pity, sharing, caring, welfare, health care are really, if you but knew, dangerous and bad. It enables them to argue that they are ignoring the plain orders of Jesus to "love one another" because they are following a higher path of hating one another until they are good enough for Jesus. Its counterintuitive, but it works for them.
ReplyDeleteI think you are on to something. Megan's entire style of argument is like someone using a nit comb to comb out smaller and smaller nits--and then she discards the entire head of hair and keeps the nits to raise as pets.
ReplyDeleteA real Nazi would have joined the party.
ReplyDeleteHorrifying but not surprising. Read any detailed account of Russian history--as the linked article says just go right back to Ivan the Terrible--and you find a culture and society that is in many ways more opaque and foreign than if it were derived from aliens, and more authoritarian and grotesque than the meanest prison.
ReplyDeleteA russian woman said to me, while we were waiting to pick our daughters up from ballet, "In Russia we have a saying: Happiness is always past tense."
I believe the term Megan is looking for is "the McAddled thought processes..."
ReplyDeleteSry I ment wether if neone had clected em in 1 place.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget, she's an "economist". With a few exceptions, rationalizing failure is their primary skill.
ReplyDeleteShortened by some libertards to "argbargs."
ReplyDeleteI always enjoy seeing the classics referenced.
ReplyDeleteYour comment reminds me that "Coach" handbags has my email address and sends me 25% off adds every other day. Nope. Their handbags are TOO BIG.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely NOT an economist, but an English major who somehow managed to survive an MBA program at a heavily quant school, which basically makes her Amity Shlaes with even worse writing and reasoning skills.
ReplyDeleteQuite, quite! If I predicted that the Iraq invasion was going to be a never-ending disaster which might give rise to even more, even more vicious "terror" retaliations, I'd still be wrong because I didn't explain in detail (including places & time) exactly what would happen.
ReplyDeleteSO if Arglebargument is drinking alcohol and driving carelessly in dark and sleety conditions and I say "hey, you're gonna get in an accident" I can't be correct unless I tell her what intersection the wreck will take place in, what brand the other car is, how many pedestrians are run over and the name of the first officer answering the 911 call is.
Oh my god. How perfect! Of course it should be McArgBargs.
ReplyDeleteIf they are libertarian croupiers they won't even trade.
ReplyDeleteThis is yet another thing that has been addressed by Fred "Slacktivist" Clark: the poisonous notion that if Christ espoused it, only Christ can do it. Hence, peacemaking is suspect, and ultimately futile, because only Jesus can bring true peace. Anyone who actually works for peace is either deluded or has a secret evil agenda. (Not to mention that if you read Revelation in the approved fundamentalist manner, with your head up your ass, the First Horseman has a bow, but there's no mention of an arrow in the bow, so he's obviously the Antichrist pretending to be a peacemaker in order to conquer the world. Which is why the UN is Satan's tool. I swear I am not making this up.) Similarly, Jesus fed the poor and healed the sick, but we are justified by faith, not works, so Christians shouldn't worry about doing those things when they could be proselytizing instead. Eventually, you have a version of Christianity in which the Sermon on the Mount is not prescriptive, but purely descriptive of the future kingdom of God, and everything Christ has said about "the least of these" is thrown on the scrapheap, because the imitation of Christ is now blasphemy.
ReplyDeleteI had conveniently forgotten that part. So fair warning: it's possible that I'm the Antichrist right now.
ReplyDeleteIs there a link?
ReplyDeleteAnd the Dinosaur head is Pam Atlas.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. The quotes around "economist" are not there for nothing ;-)
ReplyDeleteWhy did Constantinople get the works?
ReplyDeleteeggs of a bloodsucking parasite, the louse
ReplyDeleteAutocorrect.
ReplyDelete... Er, I mean, that's nobody's business but the Turks'.
And she did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night...
ReplyDelete"Human beings tend to judge failure or success by outcome, rather than process. It’s an easy heuristic, but as in so many things, the easy way out is often disastrous."
ReplyDeleteTranslation: "See? Intent is magic after all. Intent can redeem anything. And how do I know? Because I just said so and my intentions were good. Lah-dee-dah-dee-dah-dah-dah-I-can't-hear-you. In addition flurgle also too."
shocked looks, but it was dark out so not as effective
ReplyDeleteWell, speaking as an English major, she didn't get that from us.
ReplyDeleteI have too much pride to have an MBA; I actually have a *real* Master's degree, inasmuch as a Master's degree in what amounts to applied rhetoric is "real." On the other hand, I do have a job that amounts to more than jerking my brain off for a wingnut welfare cheque, so there is that. I mean, I'm an honest whore; I work in IT. :)
"Autocorrect." I'll have you know I almost boom-laughed at work (reading Alicublog on the dl again).
ReplyDeleteI merely regret that I have but one upvote to give.
In addition, the anti-war people were instinctively opposed to Bush and his policies so they hadn't thought through their opposition on this precise issue.
ReplyDeleteIn contrast to MM and her colleagues who were instinctively supporting everything Bush did, and therefore had to work hard to rationalise the subsequent string of disasters.
To be fair, "egotistical people" includes *everyone*.
ReplyDeleteI had wondered whether you can really complain about "revisionist history" while describing real-time events.
ReplyDeleteThey're makers, so they'll make faces.
ReplyDeleteI blame the Mongol invasion. Up to then, Rus' was progressing out of medievalism along a parallel path to the rest of Europe. About the same time as the Magna Carta in England, and in much the same way, the merchants and barons In large towns like Kiev and Novgorod were reining in the power of their own rulers.
ReplyDeleteThen the Golden Horde stormed in and knocked everything pear-shaped.
Looking back on Megan's Iraq comment, those people she talked to...what ways could they possibly have come up with that Iraq didn't go wrong?
ReplyDeleteAlmost by definition. But, heuristics! That's why she works for Bloomberg and you don't.
ReplyDeleteOkay, then: six hundred threescore and six what?
ReplyDeletePfft, you would say that.
ReplyDeleteThank you for giving me an excuse to link to one of my all-time favorite bizarre Batman/Superman covers, which works well as an illustration for a wide variety of blog posts.
ReplyDelete"Blood for oil." Last I heard the Chinese had locked down most of the oil. (OTOH, maybe that was just another thing that the Cheney administration fucked up.)
ReplyDeleteI vaguely recall him losing his job, throwing a public meltdown that he hadn't become a web blog millionaire, revealing that he had no savings and living on his credit cards/reverse mortgage, and he, his wife, and his daughter were all getting gastric/lap band surgery - the daughter so she could lose enough weight to enlist, and the whole thing being done without insurance. Pretty much exactly how you'd figure someone who loved to yammer on about bootstraps and self-discipline and government dependency would end up.
ReplyDeleteSome hare-brained liberal blog had all the scurrilous details back in 2008: http://alicublog.blogspot.com/2008/11/where-are-they-now-i-hadnt-thought.html
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't mind reading a "Where Are They Now" feature on the warblogging class of 2002-04. What has Emperor Misha, The Anti-Idiotarian been up to? Has Steven den Beste finally married his anime body pillow? Did "The Gnat" flee Casa Lileks at 12:01am on the morning of her 18th birthday? Dammit I want to know!
Holy shitsnacks, I'd forgotten all the details. Kim is unable to work because of gout (!), so his wife cashed in her IRA and they spent the money on server capacity, cosmetic surgery, and an around-the-world grand tourist excursion with the whole family. Naturally, the reason they're flat broke is because of Ebony Stalin and his confiscatory policies.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever seen Brad Neely's ? Draw your own conclusions.
ReplyDeleteHey. As a Baltimoron and lifelong (such as it was) Balto. Colts fan I resemble that remark. We're STILL mad at Irsay and Indianapolis, the Ravens notwithstanding.
ReplyDelete'In the West, everything goes and nothing matters, in the Sov. Union nothing goes and everything matters'?
ReplyDeleteVia Philip Roth, although I forget in what. The Prague Orgy, probably. It might therefore be a reference to something other than the Soviet Union...
AH:
"When I was first in Czechoslovakia, it occurred to me that I work in a society where as a writer everything goes and nothing matters, while for the Czech writers I met in Prague, nothing goes and everything matters."
Thanks, Internet.
Dude. Permission to steal? Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure McArdle is a knuckle-dragger, so not truly bipedal.
ReplyDeleteWell, it's the "even if the evidence strongly suggests otherwise" part that sets her apart. To paraphrase the old joke, Megan was born on third base and thinks that she's Mickey Mantle.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's too bad that FJSK is gone, because Mrs. du Toit's first husband showed up in the comments with more background.
ReplyDeleteAs I recall, the Bush administration asked the military "Would yo mind laying waste to Iraq so we can give the oil to oil companies?" The military shrugged and said : "well that's what we're here for! let's go!" but when they actually offered it to the oil companise they wouldn't take it!. They were doing fine as it was.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.gregpalast.com/bush-didnt-bungle-iraq-you-fools/
And the fact that the US military was just fine with sacrificing a bunch of Americans and untold thousands of Iraqis to this purpose. I mean, heck, they just follow orders.
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