Wednesday, November 27, 2013

BECAUSE YOU CAN'T SPELL THANKSGIVING WITHOUT LIBERAL FASCISM.

In his Morning Jolt thing he sends around to subscribers (here's a heavily-edited version some guy put on the internet), Jim Geraghty makes fun of the OFA PR campaign encouraging liberals to tell relatives about Obamacare at Thanksgiving dinner. Fair enough. I myself wouldn't bring it up, though if one of them came at me with some bullshit I would say, "that is some bullshit" and take it from there.

As often happens when a conservative has half a point, Geraghty keeps going until he has negative-a-point-and-a-half:
Our friend Jonah gets a lot of grief over Liberal Fascism, usually from people who have never read the book, and who usually go on to insist they don't need to in order to criticize it.
(I have read it; it's a piece of shit.)
But there is a creepy quasi-fascist vibe in this effort to turn families' holiday gatherings into an opportunity to dissuade critics of the president's policies...
When you say the word 'fascist,' people usually picture Mussolini speaking from a balcony and his high-booted goons marching around in public squares. Because we don't see those images in American society today, a lot of people recoil from labeling anyone in our modern politics with the term "fascist." 
Also because a lot of people aren't nuts.
But Mussolini wrote, "for the fascist, everything is in the state, and no human or spiritual thing exists, or has any sort of value, outside the state." Among the Organizing for Action crew, there seems to be some irresistible compulsion to take something outside the state -- Thanksgiving dinner -- and co-opt it for the purposes of the state -- or its leader, or its agenda.
Meanwhile over at his National Review blog, Geraghty encourages his readers to send out Thanksgiving cards devised by the Heritage Foundation with messages like "Let's be thankful Kathleen Sebelius isn't coaching our football team." This isn't a fascist use of the holiday at all, though, because, as Professor Goldberg has taught us, faaaart.

UPDATE. The remainder of Geraghty's thing is even worse, in a way: When a fellow wingnut suggests that maybe income equality on the massive scale we're seeing in this country isn't good for democracy, he sorta sees the point ("All societies have winners and losers, but modern America's winners are separating from the rest of us rather rapidly"), but retreats into victim-blaming:
A big question that is likely to dominate our politics in the coming years is: How much are the "losers" of modern America responsible for their circumstances?... if most of our countrymen getting the short end of the stick are folks who "worked hard and played by the rules," some significant chunk of them exacerbated their problems with bad decisions: They dropped out of school, had children before they were ready, abused alcohol or drugs, pursued unrealistic career paths... 
If most of you who are punished by inequality are blameless, comfort yourselves that your suffering also touches the nation's whores, junkies, and MFAs!
Obama has talked in the past about a “culture of irresponsibility,” but he’s mostly used that phrase in the context of Wall Street, and in fact pledged to “protect consumers from bad mortgages and greedy credit-card companies.” In his world, it’s always the big powerful corporations making trouble for the person in debt, not the person who actually ran up that debt. 
Quite a few Americans want to hear that we ourselves are most responsible for the quality of our own lives. If we could overcome that, the rest of the problems would fall like dominoes.
I guess Geraghty had to satisfy himself that income equality, like everything else, is not Wall Street's fault before he could really enjoy sending out his Heritage Foundation Thanksgiving cards.

Again I have to ask: Do these guys even know any real people?

118 comments:

  1. "Quite a few Americans want to hear that we ourselves are most
    responsible for the quality of our own lives. If we could overcome that,
    the rest of the problems would fall like dominoes."


    If we could overcome wanting to hear that we are responsible...? I guess there's something to that. Geraghty himself, for example, surely wants to hear that he is most responsible for the quality of his life rather than a random beneficiary of old Mr. Buckley's family charity.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Substance McGravitas2:15 PM

    But you could not have pure dark meat or pure white meat nowadays. No serving was
    pure, because everything was mixed up with fear and hatred and potatoes. The cranberry sauce had been a battle, the stuffing a victory. It was a blow struck
    against the Party. It was a political act.

    ReplyDelete
  3. But Mussolini wrote, "for the fascist, everything is in the state....

    But Satan Scrooge McDuck Gov. Rick Scott wrote, "for the conservative, everything is in the free market, and no human or spiritual thing exists, or has any sort of value, outside the free market."

    He then proceeded to issue an executive order requiring weekly tests to maintain one's driver's license and handed the multi-billion dollar testing contract to a company headed by his wife, who keeps a checking account entirely separate from the Governor.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jay B.2:19 PM

    The party of sexophobia, gun fetishists and theocracy finds someone proselytizing about health care benefits over dinner distasteful?

    ReplyDelete
  5. philadelphialawyer2:27 PM

    First of all, discussing politics, while one of the traditional no nos of dinner conversation, is not the same thing as putting, in Mussolini's terms, "the State" above everything. A fascist comparison, if one must have one, would be bringing up some topic at a family dinner that the State and governing party has a line on, and then reporting back to a party or State official if anyone dissented from that line. People have to talk about something during Thanksgiving dinner, and simply mentioning one's experience dealing with the exchange web sites does not have to be a one sided political diatribe.
    Also, from the link, what OFA seems to be suggesting is talking points to refute "your Republican uncle," with the implication being that he is the one who starts in with the politics. And, actually, that sort of mirrors my own experiences at holiday family gatherings....Republican/conservaguy/"libertarian" makes a political statement of dubious merit. Liberal smiles and lets it go. Repub guy makes another, and another and another such statement, until, finally, liberal person calls him out on it. Then, like Sonny in the Godfather scene with his brother in law Carlo, Repub guy says we don't talk about politics over Thanksgiving dinner. Or someone else says that. The OFA looks like a defensive, not offensive, playbook to me, designed to deal with that.
    And anyway, talk is ephemeral and only part of the gathering, but what's with the Thanksgiving cards? First of all, no one sends out Thanksgiving cards to begin with, so the entire enterprise is geared towards politicizing something that not only wasn't political before, but didn't even exist before. A stray comment over dinner is one thing, a card sent in the mail specially is another. More lasting. And more obnoxious.
    I'm thankful that this year everyone at my Thanksgiving dinner will be a lib, so we can talk politics if we want to, and not have to hear any BS from conservaguy uncle.

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  6. Dr. Hunky Jimpjorps2:31 PM

    Thanksgiving, the secular celebration proclaimed by U.S. presidents and officially established as a holiday by Lincoln in the middle of the Civil War, is "outside the state"? Are they confusing it with Christmas and Easter?

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  7. Derelict2:33 PM

    You keep asking if they know any real people, but most real people who are not forced by marriage or circumstance (trapped on a holiday flight next to one of them) to associate with conservatives like Geraughty start edging for the exits or running swiftly away once they understand just who and what they're dealing with.
    Geraughty takes that as a win, instead of what the actual message is.

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  8. edroso2:40 PM

    Links please.

    ReplyDelete
  9. And, actually, that sort of mirrors my own experiences at holiday family gatherings....Republican/conservaguy/"libertarian" makes a political statement of dubious merit. Liberal smiles and lets it go. Repub guy makes another, and another and another such statement, until, finally, liberal person calls him out on it.

    Yep, same here. Over and over again, year after year, and not just at Thanksgiving and not just at family events. I think the dynamic has something to do with poor impulse control on the part of Neandert - er "conservatives."

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  10. philadelphialawyer2:44 PM

    Yeah, apparently "don't talk about politics" means don't argue about politics, and it is always OK to get in the first shot. Especially if it is a conservative one. Everyone, I guess, is just assumed to agree with conservative talking points, so presenting them is, somehow, not "political." But refuting them is.

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  11. Exactly. It's all "So I was just minding my own business commenting on how the Kenyan Pretender in the White House is a secret Marxist with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and all of a sudden a liberal attacked me for no reason and almost spoiled everyone's dinner."

    ReplyDelete
  12. Every Fourth of July I have the pleasure of hearing about why Nancy Pelosi pisses my grandfather off. In a nutshell: gas prices are too high and it's her fault.

    ReplyDelete
  13. zencomix3:16 PM

    The invisible hand of the free market was too warm when making this pie crust.
    #thanksalotobamacare

    ReplyDelete
  14. BigHank533:28 PM

    Again I have to ask: Do these guys even know any real people?

    Well, I'm a real person, and I don't want to get to know Mr. Geraghty. My time is limited; I'm even willing to make that judgement based on the evidence of his writing. I can't imagine he's more palatable in the flesh.

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  15. MBouffant4:20 PM

    trex is dispatching from the future, after Oligarch Scott's Glorious Re-Victory in 2014

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  16. Well, one of my uncles is Dick Cheney and I doubt we're going to be chatting about the ACA at Thanksgiving. You might not believe this, but Uncle Dick generally controls the conversation (he once told the children, in a jocular fashion, mind, that if they didn't quit making noise at the nearby kiddie table he'd come over and administer some "enhanced quieting techniques"; but I deliquesce) and what he likes to talk most about is fishing. And by fishing I mean he retells the same stories, over and over year after year, about what a lousy goldarn fisherman is George W. Bush. Uncle Dick cries tears of laughter into his battered squash while describing Dubya's lame attempts at casting a fly, and how every time the Prez farmed another fish Uncle Dick would holler, "I guess the fish is the Decider, and he decided to swim away!" Uncle Dick also always tells the story of the Prez' response when he asked Dubya if he knew the difference between a wet fly and a dry fly and George replied, "Well shoot! Of course I do! A dry fly is when I look at Condi and a wet fly is when I look at old photos of Peggy Noonan! Hehheheheh." As all our family knows, Uncle Dick does a wonderful imitation of Dubya’s schoolboy chortle.

    Yes, Thanksgiving with Uncle Dick is all about fishing and how George W, Bush, “can’t tie a leader, can’t be a leader, has no leader qualities,” and swears he only ever muttered this under his breath. The family has heard
    countless times the story about how Uncle Dick “accidentally” snagged Dubya in the nostril in mid-cast, and how unfortunate that he was using a #8 treble hook "for the only time, ever," and how on earth did he forget to bring pliers this time, anyhow? Or how he convinced the Prez (Uncle Dick usually refers to him as “Numbnuts,” but the family has agreed to edit this info out when relating Tales From the Table) that the water wasn’t deep in a certain part of the river and almost laughed himself to death as the Prez took a hesitant step and then completely disappeared underwater, only to become semi-buoyant (his chest waders had filled with water) as he was whisked through the run, “gesticulating like a bronc-buster astride a horse he ought notta’ mounted.” My uncle really has a way with words.

    It was at Thanksgiving two years ago, enjoying cigars rolled by immigrants chained to the border fence and brandy aged in oak barrels staved with bones of Iraqi war dead, that Uncle Dick confided in me that the root cause of his heart problems was fishing trips with Numbnuts, and how the gales of laughter these adventures provided were simply too much for “the ol’ pumper.” He told me that a younger, healthier man could have enjoyed many more years of fishing with Dubya, but under orders from his doctor, a kindly octogenarian from Argentina with a thick German accent, well, Uncle Dick says he was told to either keep fishing with Dubya or die untimely as a bitter, defeated old man without a shred of empathy for anyone or thing and an inflated sense of place in history and the world. And that is how my Uncle Dick will surely go, dreaming of a Caddis fly perfectly presented
    at the head of a pristine pool, with just the swirling burble of the river and
    Dubya’s shrieks (“Dang! them hooks is sharp!”) providing the score.

    Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

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  17. Cargo5:00 PM

    oh my god this. Every damn time.

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  18. satch5:25 PM

    OK, Jimmy, ya got me. I never read Liberal Fascism, but then, I never read Rules for Radicals either... I didn't know who Saul Alinsky was until I Googled him after I noticed that the wingers couldn't seem to stop yammering about him. Now on to our feature:

    "A big question that is likely to dominate our politics in the coming
    years is: How much are the "losers" of modern America responsible for
    their circumstances?... if most of our countrymen getting the short end
    of the stick are folks who "worked hard and played by the rules," some
    significant chunk of them exacerbated their problems with bad decisions:
    They dropped out of school, had children before they were ready, abused
    alcohol or drugs, pursued unrealistic career paths..."

    At least, the wingnut think tank brain trust was smart enough to realize early in the game that in order to destroy the idea of compassion for the less fortunate among us, the less fortunate had to be ruthlessly demonized as lazy, dirty moochers. And now, just as they were making headway in their mission, along comes Pope Francis (Pope Francis denounces 'trickle-down' economic theories in critique of inequality Washington Post ‎- 9 hours ago) to spoil their party. I keep wondering if the College of Cardinals really knew what they were getting when they voted for this guy.

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  19. MBouffant5:29 PM

    Here's a complementary column, from TImothy P. Carney:
    So let me offer my conservative and libertarian readers the first annual Thanksgiving Guide to Making Conservative Arguments in Liberals’ Language.

    (Although he's admitting conserva-libertarian unity, he should go fuck himself anyway. Libertardians & conservatives combined still don't hit 30% of the voting fools.)

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  20. mortimer20005:35 PM

    Irony's Body Lies A-Mouldering in the Grave Dept.
    On the same issue, Jonah Goldberg wrote this sentence today:
    If it weren’t all so comically lame, it would be disturbing.

    That is all. Happy Thanksgiving.

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  21. TGuerrant6:27 PM

    Can Liz and Mary be trusted to do the dishes together or is there too much breakage?

    ReplyDelete
  22. TGuerrant6:28 PM

    So we can come over to your place?

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  23. Jay B.6:32 PM

    Madam/Sir,


    I am forever in you debt. Whatever the veracity of your post is, whatever the point, I am dropping a kerchief, in hopes that this comment somehow finds its suitor. It is me. Behind the drapes. In the library. By the lures.

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  24. AGoodQuestion7:46 PM

    The OFA looks like a defensive, not offensive, playbook to me, designed to deal with that.
    Exactly, and therein - from a wingnut perspective - lies the problem. There's not supposed to be any defense. The aunt and uncle armed with an email forward from the Blaze are supposed to score a quick victory before the mashed potatoes are gravied. This is the good, American, totally non-political result. For liberals to mess with that in order to defend themselves and their opinions is like allowing a straight majority of Senators to confirm a judge while the Senate is majority Democrat: a blot on everything good and decent.

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  25. if most of our countrymen getting the short end of the stick are folks who "worked hard and played by the rules," some significant chunk of them exacerbated their problems with bad decisions: They dropped out of school, had children before they were ready, abused alcohol or drugs, pursued unrealistic career paths...


    Fuck you with a poorly oiled chainsaw, you git!


    Dropped out of school? But, but I thought schools were bastions of liberalism, and isn't dropping out of school the same as being homeschooled?


    Had children before they were ready? But, but, precious snowflakes, and women ain't good fer nuthin less'n they's bred?


    Abused alcohol or drugs? Dude, no sane person is sober after 6. PM or AM, doesn't matter. Better dad have 3 beers after work than tax your Halloween candy and encourage you to grow a neckbeard.


    Pursued unrealistic career paths? Like taking care of a family, having a vaca once in a while, even just to Jellystone Campground in glamorous Warrens WI?. I dreamed of working for Wal-Donalds because I wanted a Porsche?


    Just because you proved, apparently numerous times, that you can type while giving a rimjob to, well, every Pubbie including the ghost of Zombie Reagan, don't you fucking dare to try to imagine how people are living, how many are scraping by and scraping grease off their skin at night, or working on Thanksgiving fucking day because they have. no. choice.


    You are a goddammit sociopath, probably have a collection of children's earlobes in your basement, and you can do the world a favor and suck on an RPG.

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  26. AGoodQuestion7:52 PM

    Yours for not having the initiative to appropriate your opponents' parts.


    Oh wait, you're losing. That might mean that if you did steal his driveshaft you'd just be a looter.


    It's a difficult ethic to master.

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  27. redoubt7:52 PM

    OFA Thanksgiving Cards


    When You Don't Care, You Just Want To Send The Very Worst



    This is what the world looks like to people who read 1984 and consider it a wish book.

    ReplyDelete
  28. You can now get a Thanksgiving pizza, with turkey, potatoes, gravy, and cranberry dipping sauce.


    But don't please. Ecch.


    Merry Thanx Day MB!

    ReplyDelete
  29. Spaghetti Lee8:04 PM

    But Mussolini wrote, "for the fascist, everything is in the state, and
    no human or spiritual thing exists, or has any sort of value, outside
    the state."



    Well, if Mussolini shows up at my Thanksgiving dinner, I'll be sure to tell him off.

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  30. monkey.dave9:04 PM

    I imagine the process of teaching a conservative how to make an argument in non-wingnutese is much like the time Father Ted was preparing Father Jack for the visit of the Bishops. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TQuacxEjAU)


    "OK, you can do it: 'The problem with the regulatory state is that the regulatory bodies are inevitably captured by the very industries they are supposed to be overseeing,' Now you say it."


    "FAST AND FURIOUS! ARSE! WHERE'S THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE!? BENGAZI!"

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  31. smut clyde10:07 PM

    it is always OK to get in the first shot
    ...and we're back to Dick Cheney.

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  32. calling all toasters10:39 PM

    You forgot to ask us to help you write it.

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  33. Drive by politicking.

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  34. Well, it just goes to show how terrified they are that the calvinist propaganda is starting to lose its effectiveness. "Work hard, play by the rules, and still get screwed" is a political charge that started under Clinton. They brushed it off then but by this time their own voters are starting to get a bit antsy and starting to feel that this applies to them. Of course they still assume it doesn't apply to women (Lutz, the girl we were making fun of in the previous thread has an entire twittergasm about Obama implying that girls don't have it made in this economy and society) or to immigrants or minorities. Those people never "worked hard" and who cares about what rules they think they played by? But still, if white male ressentiment ever gets focused like a bleary laser on the upper class they know there will be hell to pay.

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  35. Budbear11:08 PM

    I'd like to storm the Bastille with this comment.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Or, even simpler: There are good women who need to have lots of babies and bad women who must never have babies. Wingnut scientists are currently working on the formula to sort them, and once it's finished we can feed it into a computer and get this natalist dystopia started proper.

    ReplyDelete
  37. Daniel Björkman12:53 AM

    I am morbidly curious.

    What is it with that running gag with Goldberg and farting? Is he infamous for doing it at at a public function once or something?

    ReplyDelete
  38. Pursued unrealistic career paths? Like taking care of a family, having a
    vaca once in a while, even just to Jellystone Campground in glamorous
    Warrens WI?. I dreamed of working for Wal-Donalds because I wanted a
    Porsche?


    Bull's-eye. These days, an "unrealistic career path" is anything over minimum wage.

    ReplyDelete
  39. Quite a few Americans want to hear that we ourselves are most responsible for the quality of our own lives. If we could overcome that, the rest of the problems would fall like dominoes.

    If we could overcome that Americans want to hear that we ourselves are most responsible for the quality of our own lives? There seems to be a missing "not" in the first sentence or the "that" in the second sentence is not doing what Geraghty wants it to. (Shiftless, lazy, mooching "that"!) Does National Review have an editor?

    The thing is, I don't want to hear that I'm the most responsible for the quality of my own life or hear that I'm not. Reality and my wishes ain't the same. (Not that my life is horrible, but…) I would like the actual state of the world to improve. Nor is that an uncommon attitude.

    The (fairly small) group of people who self-identify as conservatives and whom I'd actually consider "reasonable" are basically cautious liberals who underestimate how badly the game is rigged and/or the feasibility of fixing it. Geraghty's a different breed and selling some significantly different crap. As Corey Robin and others have argued, true conservatism is reactionary and obsessed with hierarchies and power. Freedumb is all about plutocracy, neofeudalism, bigotry, and oodles of butthurt.

    Anyway, happy Thanksgiving, alicurati!

    ReplyDelete
  40. Best Left Undisturbed1:26 AM

    It is my experience (and I suspect I am not alone) that the family neocon is the one who cannot wait to begin braying his sundry political theories at the table when everyone else just wants to enjoy themselves and the company.

    But they never let an opportunity to play culture-war martyr pass by! Just the other day, Scott Adams (of Dilbert, MENSA, and yeah, sockpuppetry) wrote an angry blog post about the horrible suffering his dad was going through because euthanasia was not an option; Adams' father died within hours of the posting. But SFGate's ever-sensitive former faux-independent, now self-proclaimed "Token Conservative" Debra Saunders took it upon herself to confront Adams until she could contrive his statement into a personal threat.



    http://science.slashdot.org/story/13/11/26/1511238/why-scott-adams-wished-death-on-his-dad


    Upon reading Saunder's article, Jonah Goldberg must've sharted out of sheer envy.

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  41. Marcia Kazmierczak2:14 AM

    Brava

    ReplyDelete
  42. Marcia Kazmierczak2:24 AM

    Yeah, it might just be that some people who inherited wealth and opportunity don't "deserve" it.

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  43. ColBatGuano2:57 AM

    Nice how he merges "the rest of us" with "losers" without blinking an
    eye. It's not even victim-blaming, it's everybody-blaming.



    Yeah, why would he want to live in a country where 90% of the people are "losers" who made bad choices?

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  44. AngryWarthogBreath5:12 AM

    It's Triplanetary's fault for having the driveshaft the other guy needed to sell in his car, and not having already had several rocket boosters and an anti-theft device; obviously these things are necessary, so anyone who didn't acquire them is irresponsible.

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  45. philadelphialawyer8:10 AM

    That's not only simple, it is too simple. Indeed, while horrifying and dictatorial, it actually makes a kind of sense. But, as glennisw and Triplanetary point out, the conservaguys don't make sense. Because, while sure, they think that the good women should have lots of babies, they think that the bad women should have lots of babies too. They just also happen to think that the bad women must never have babies.

    What? You got a problem with that? Well, as Emerson said, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood. "

    You are looking for simple, conservaguy, "great soul" that he is, seeks greatness! Or, perhaps, to be misunderstood!

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  46. JennOfArk9:29 AM

    Duh. So he can lord it over them.

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  47. Wtf does he mean by "unrealistic career path" anyway? Not knowing your place? Not being satisfied with your shitty station in life?

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  48. Movement rightists are better Alinskyites than we could be in our wildest dreams.

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  49. The_Kenosha_Kid10:25 AM

    BGZI5278, libtard!!! TPRMTR328, LOL!!! #tcot

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  50. It really is a neat trick how they've managed to convince all these suckers that standing with one's boot on the throat of a working stiff is an antiauthoritarian posture.

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  51. LittlePig10:42 AM

    "Everybody hates me! I must be doing something right...."

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  52. Daniel Björkman10:49 AM

    Ahhhhhh, gotcha.

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  53. LittlePig10:56 AM

    And here I thought the Cheeto dust was the tell.

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  54. PersonaAuGratin10:56 AM

    Thanks for , um, clearing the air on that one.

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  55. PersonaAuGratin11:04 AM

    ...dropped out of school, had children before they were ready, abused alcohol or drugs, pursued unrealistic career paths...


    Conspicuously omitted from the list: "Failed to sign up for health insurance."

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  56. Ellis_Weiner11:39 AM

    "Do these guys even know any real people?"


    They wouldn't recognize them even if they did. But you're assuming these wing-nut theorists are writing in good faith--that their opinions and arguments honestly embody their experience (of not knowing any real people) and the sincere thought generated therefrom.



    BWAH-HA-HAAAA, etc. No, see, they're propagandists. It's a (psychic, if not financial) living. When the Liberal Fascism shtick gets too stale even to allude to, they'll commission some clown to write Liberal Anarchism and make "sincere" arguments the other way.

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  57. Thanksgiving - an American holiday that celebrates the invention, by natives, of socialism for undocumented immigrants, who being the lazy sorry ass liberal wetbacks that they were, demanded not just the food but the land that produced it as their god given entitlement.

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  58. mijaba12:33 PM

    I'll have to take your word for that. Not being a conservative, I've never read his works.

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  59. Mooser12:48 PM

    I am going to my Mother-in-law's house for Thanksgiving later, and all the grownchildren will be there, with their spouses, and possibly some nieces and nephews.
    I will roll several cigarettes, the type which make one nonchalant, and a bit je nes sais pas, and will need "to go out for a breath of fresh air and stretch my legs" several times in the visit. The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh through the white and drifting snow, if you get my drift.

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  60. Mooser12:53 PM

    I wouldn't count on it. He'll probably just stay home and order a pizza. The only way he eats turkey (hell, he didn't even have much time to eat crow!) is in tetrazini!

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  61. Mooser12:58 PM

    "Shut yo' mouf"! "But I'm talking about shafting!"

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  62. Mooser1:00 PM

    "Gratitude is for the dogs"


    Tell that to my Dora. As far as she's concerned, her pedigree is better than mine.

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  63. Red_cted2:38 PM

    "high-booted goons marching around in public squares. Because we don't see those images in American society today"
    He has never been to Folsom Street Fair has he?

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  64. MBouffant3:09 PM

    Sure. It's BYO Dog Food though.

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  65. MBouffant3:10 PM

    No Way In Hell! "Ecch" is a mild reaction.

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  66. PorlockJunior3:41 PM

    "The (fairly small) group of people who self-identify as conservatives
    and whom I'd actually consider "reasonable" are basically cautious
    liberals who underestimate how badly the game is rigged and/or the
    feasibility of fixing it."


    If Batocchio didn't already have too many of them to fit on the mantelpiece, that would be today's winner of the Internet.


    [Though my inner nitpicker says it's the obstacles to fixing it that are underestimated.]

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  67. They've been arguing for a looooong time that "kids these days" insist on getting BAs in french philosophy or fine arts or effete snobbery and film criticism instead of hard, manly, realistic careers like "medical technician" or computer scientist or something. Of course, as it turns out, thousands of young people are getting education degrees, business associate degrees, hotel management, etc..etc...etc... The for profit end of the collge rip off is all about sensible degrees instead of a liberal arts education. But if there are no jobs there are no jobs. How do they explain the people who had realistic career paths--hell,, they had realistic careers, until the recession ate their jobs? Were they retroactively declared to be unrealistic?

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  68. JennOfArk10:54 PM

    Alternately, you could also make the case that Jonah's prose is an emission rather than a piece of actual work. At the very least, it gives the appearance of having required about the same amount of effort as it takes to pass gas.


    Then there's the obvious: both farts and Jonah's prose stink.

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  69. sophronia11:00 PM

    No, they believe "bad" women shouldn't ever have sex.
    Of course, they also believe that the reason they are bad is because they have sex.

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  70. sophronia11:36 PM

    I actually have a relative who worked for the Heritage Foundation for several years. He's a joy to be around, and all of us in the family love him. Why? Because he is also a human being, and he understands that holiday family gatherings are not a good time to take advantage of people's warm feelings and good manners and start haranguing them with the latest from the political blastfax.
    The true legacy of the talk radio Rush Limbaughs and their ilk is the idea of politics as an all-consuming life obsession, and the ranting cranks who pollute the discourse everywhere as valiant foot soldiers in some sort of cosmic battle. They've produced legions of people who aren't comfortable unless they can divide every gathering into Us vs. Them.

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  71. Thought experiment: what if a thousand people on facebook asked this question:


    Are you gay for guns?


    Let's try and find out.

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  72. I sat on a jury some years ago. It concerned the fate of a man, a boy really, who was used as a drug mule. The person who most wanted conviction was also the most vocal conservative. I don't know if it was to prove his street cred or what, but at one point he started to brag about the cocaine he did during his last Colorado ski trip.


    "Asshole," does not begin to describe this guy.

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  73. fraser7:06 AM

    As Lawyers, Guns and Money keeps pointing out, the number of law-school graduates exceed the supply. Yet somehow I don't think they consider law school an unrealistic career path.

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  74. j_bird9:07 AM

    Funny how this also happens with sexist/racist/otherwise bigoted comments. Somehow the person calling them out gets all the disapproval.

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  75. There is often some strange alchemy where the agressor turns himself/herself into the victim as soon as you begin a pushback. Not everywhere or everytime but especially in communities and families where there is a strong push to keep the lid on unpleasantness the person who is the biggest troublemaker is the person who speaks truth to power or otherwise doesn't just let certain things slide. Sometimes its because everyone agrees with the first racist/sexist/politically charged comment but sometimes its because people don't want to contravene other rules of decorum or hierarchy. Or they see argument and discussion as the greatest threat to family harmony--greater than racism or sexism. I identify this cultureway with the midwest and minnesota nice.

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  76. j_bird9:14 AM

    Well, sure it's her fault. Women don't know anything about cars, duh. She probably doesn't even know how to fill up the nation's tank.

    ReplyDelete
  77. The billiard-sharp whom anyone catches
    His doom’s extremely hard—
    He’s made to dwell
    In a dungeon cell
    On a spot that’s always barred.
    And there he plays extravagant matches
    In fitless finger-stalls,
    On a cloth untrue
    With a twisted cue
    And elliptical billiard balls.

    My object all sublime
    I shall achieve in time—
    To let the punishment fit the crime—

    ReplyDelete
  78. He has interns for that.

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  79. Assless chaps is an oxymoron. All chaps are, by definition, assless. :)

    ReplyDelete
  80. Not an oxymoron, but redundant. Full coverage chaps would be an oxymoron.

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  81. j_bird10:37 AM

    No, see, if you do too much cocaine while "studying" to be a lawyer, you haven't necessarily made any bad decisions yet. First thing, try to be white and maybe you won't get arrested for drug possession. If that doesn't work, you call up a well-connected relative and have them get the charges dropped. They might even give you a nice quiet job writing opinion articles for their paper. There's always a way out of adversity. It's a shame today's teenage mothers don't teach their kids that.

    ReplyDelete
  82. I was too busy cooking to throw you an upvote for this gorgeous, cranberry bedecked, comment. I could just eat you up.

    ReplyDelete
  83. Mooser12:20 PM

    Wait, let me get this straight. You have a relative who worked for Heritage, and you did nothing? Not even a wedgie, let alone the five finger sandwich he probably deserves?


    Have you no feeling at all for your fellow persons?

    ReplyDelete
  84. Mooser12:21 PM

    And aren't "chaps" the most appropriate leg-wear for riding a "cruiser"? They are useless on a motorcycle, of course.

    ReplyDelete
  85. J Neo Marvin3:50 PM

    CPL5938 to you!

    ReplyDelete
  86. RHWombat4:08 PM

    Um...wrong end of the Laffer joke?

    ReplyDelete
  87. realinterrobang4:13 PM

    That's just low. I mean, I'm all for kicking that asshat Adams when he's down, but not when he's that kind of down.

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  88. realinterrobang4:23 PM

    Not only that, but the implications are such that basically, unless you're born with money, you get no leeway, ever. Make a mistake, and you deserve to be fucked, forever, which also means that you have to work twice as hard to get half as far.

    This is of course precisely the way they want it.

    ReplyDelete
  89. realinterrobang4:29 PM

    ...and also for not being the guy who's selling the rocket boosters, duh.

    ReplyDelete
  90. realinterrobang4:33 PM

    This is my family dynamic in a nutshell, and we're Canadian. The person who is spewing the absolute bullshit is never in as much trouble as I (the person who says, "Waitaminit, that's bullshit!") am. Of course, the fact that I'm the Designated Bad Seed might have something to do with that, but I don't know for sure.

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  91. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person7:36 PM

    In that world, if a woman gets pregnant, it'd her fault, no question. And the baby is her punishment. My brain hurts just thinking *about* the way they think...

    ReplyDelete
  92. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person7:41 PM

    23SKIDOO!


    A question I just have to ask every once in a while: Does Ski-Doo make a Model 23 snowmobile? And if not, why not?

    ReplyDelete
  93. JennOfArk7:42 PM

    Hey JP, I need some help on a photoshop. I had asked Subby a while back, but he's been busy 3-D printing his head. What's the best way to reach you via email?

    ReplyDelete
  94. philadelphialawyer11:10 PM

    The only way I see it changing is when the real dinosaurs die off (which is kind of sad, because not all of them, even with their bad politics, are/were bad people) or enough "new blood" is at the table to turn the tide. Once in a while it is kinda cool when a "new" in law or girlfriend or boyfriend of some relative, or a formerly apolitical or shy kid/teenager, jumps right in and either supports the formerly lone liberal or all on his or her own shoots down the usual racist/sexist/homophobe/right wing bullshit. Then, feeling empowered, maybe a couple of more formerly acquiescent or silent people pipe up in support too.

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  95. philadelphialawyer11:15 PM

    Yeah, but even the bad women should still have babies, even though they should never have sex (the having of which, indeed, is why they are bad in the first place). If they are white, anyway. Kinda makes the head spin.

    ReplyDelete
  96. JennOfArk11:26 PM

    No idea. I did, however, suggest that he make a bong out of the result of this 3-D project.

    ReplyDelete
  97. kennedy1:58 AM

    Visit me here:

    http://webtechnology.ph

    http://foscam.com.ph

    http://onlinepalengke.com.ph

    ReplyDelete
  98. smut clyde2:31 AM

    Quite a few Americans want to hear that we ourselves are most responsible for the quality of our own lives.
    ...these being the ones at the top. The comfortable like to be comforted (and to see the afflicted receive further affliction), and will pay their courtiers well for this service.

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  99. smut clyde2:36 AM

    Years ago a friend and I made a plaster cast of her head, and from that we made a ceramic positive, cut off at about 1 inch above eyebrow level. She used it as a bowl for serving spaghetti.

    ReplyDelete
  100. sophronia2:42 AM

    Sorry, we're genuine bleeding-heart liberals. We think society's to blame -- he grew up in Darien, Connecticut.

    ReplyDelete
  101. cleter11:48 AM

    Full coverage chaps would be what they call "pants."

    ReplyDelete
  102. cleter11:49 AM

    THX1138 LOL! ID4!

    ReplyDelete
  103. Oh, hey! I'm jprestonian at that googly mail place.


    However, I am, for the first time in decades, Photoshopless.

    ReplyDelete
  104. JennOfArk6:27 PM

    Dammit! Foiled again.

    ReplyDelete
  105. rowelangel2710:24 PM

    https://webtechnology.ph/

    http://foscam.com.ph/

    http://onlinepalengke.ph/

    ReplyDelete
  106. Mark_Bzzzz9:57 AM

    And those most likely to be comforted by someone telling them that they earned their own wealth are the kids who inherited it.

    ReplyDelete
  107. Mark_Bzzzz9:59 AM

    In the average conservative strategy deck, at least 75% of the cards are variations of 'blame the victim.'

    ReplyDelete
  108. tigrismus10:36 AM

    Oh, so "quite a few" was well-chosen, more scrupulously honest than "quite a lot" would have been.

    ReplyDelete
  109. Mooser11:04 AM

    "Comforted"? Hell, they'll pay handsomely for the privilege of hearing how deserving they are. It's a necessity for them.
    Cause you know what they're like. If they didn't think they deserved it, their ethics would force them to give it all away to the poor and homeless.

    ReplyDelete
  110. Mooser11:07 AM

    I'll have Sam mix a drink for Darien. Make one for Larry, too. Better make it a double, Sam.

    ReplyDelete
  111. Mooser11:08 AM

    Don't horse's legs need protection too, Willllbuuur?
    And who wants to protect a horses ass?

    ReplyDelete
  112. Mooser11:10 AM

    Nord C2D for all, and to all a 3300!

    ReplyDelete
  113. KatWillow2:12 PM

    the argument isn't about BABIES, its about SEX.

    ReplyDelete
  114. philadelphialawyer11:05 PM

    Its about both, actually. Good, white women should have lots of married sex and make lots of white babies. Bad, white women, who aren't married, should not be having sex. Nevertheless, they should be making lots of white babies anyway. Although they will be criticized for that too. It doesn't make sense, but that was kinda the point that of glennisw's original post.

    ReplyDelete
  115. slavdude6:33 PM

    I noticed that, too. I guess he's one of the losers, then, and if he's blaming the victim, he's blaming himself.

    ReplyDelete