Friday, January 24, 2014

STUPIDEST, WRITTEN, GOLDBERG, AGAIN*.

There are several things that are not good for Jonah Goldberg's arguments -- challenges, logic, a light rain -- but the worst results come when he tries to go off-road, i.e. abandons the simplest right-wing verities and tries to think for himself.

Case in point: The Satan statue that was proposed to make a point about religious imagery on public property in Oklahoma. Maybe what led Goldberg astray was that he noticed people were having lulz over it, and he didn't want to be the scold wagging his finger about Satan; long before he became a Professor of Liberal Fasciology at the Bulk-Order School of Conserviatrics, Goldberg was what passed in Republican circles for a comedy act, and funsies remain part of his Brand.

So Goldberg bravely eases his jalopy off the asphalt and into the sand. He acknowledges the statue is "a stunt — a clever one — exploiting the constitutional injunction against governmental favoritism towards religion" and that
...if you want to argue that erecting a tribute to Lucifer on public property is a bad idea, the Constitution is pretty useless. That’s no knock on the Constitution, mind you. Lots of wonderful things are of little utility in fighting Satan. Puppies, ice cream, the warranty on a Ford Pinto: These are as helpful in fighting Satan as a winning smile is in putting out a house fire.
(Did you catch the thing about the Ford Pinto? Years ago someone taught Goldberg the Rule of Three, and one of these days he's going to get it right.)

Unprotected by Constitutional argh-blargh, Goldberg floors it into the desert.
The Satan statue controversy is of course absurd, but absurdities are often useful in illuminating more substantial issues.
Uh oh.
America is becoming vastly more diverse — ethnically, culturally, religiously, and morally. In a great many ways that’s a good thing. But in this life, no good thing comes without a downside.
Double uh-oh. Here's where Goldberg may have begun to feel his wheels spinning. Being too lazy to rewrite, he had obliged himself to explain what, exactly, is bad about diversity. He couldn't just go "haw, diversity, amirite" like he usually does.
Consider immigration, historically a boon to America. Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam (a liberal in good standing) found that increased immigration hurts “social trust,” causing people to “hunker down” within their own bands of friends or alone in front of the TV.  Everything from trust in political leaders and the political process — both of which are at or near all-time lows, by the way — to voting and carpooling drops precipitously as more strangers move into a community.
By "immigration" I'm guessing he doesn't mean Satanists, and by "strangers" I'm guessing he doesn't mean that nice fratboy on a career track who moved into the condo next door. Since it came out six years ago, Putnam's cohesion study (and the gloat that Putnam's a liberal) has been required screeding for rightwing racists, but practitioners like Daniel Henninger and Rod Dreher can just stand there, go Ooga-Booga for three minutes, and disappear in a puff of smoke -- Goldberg's still got to get back to Satan without being any dumber than he's already been. Alas, there was no intern around to tell him to shut up about diversity:
Conversely, people increasingly look more to government — the police, local politicians, and bureaucrats — to solve problems that once could have been worked out in a neighborly conversation. This reliance on legal authority and entitlements further crowds out the charitable mechanisms and institutions of civil society, inviting yet more government intrusions.
So when we didn't have all these blacks and foreigners we didn't need cops? Here comes the flop sweat and the first, high-lonesome squeals of anxiety farting --
By the way, Putnam explicitly rejects racism as the culprit here.
-- which builds to a crescendo:
Rather, the cause is a breakdown in shared norms, customs, language, and the other often invisible and intangible but no less real sinews that bind a community together.
It was Cheetos, not chitlins,  we all knew where we stood!
Family breakdown, the decline in good blue-collar jobs, the decline of organized religion, etc., are all equally good or better examples of things sapping the strength from social trust and cohesion and encouraging government to pick up the slack...
It's big government, big government's to blame, I didn't mean black people shut up shut up FARRRRRRRRRRT.

From there it's Goldberg crawling out of the overheated wreck and across the blazing sands gasping "Funyuns... Funyuns..." and this pathetic denouement:
The unraveling of the old cultural, moral, and religious consensus has been a boon to individual freedom in myriad ways. But you can say this for the old civilizational confidence: It didn’t lack for arguments against state-sponsored devil worship.
Satan target achieved -- a lack of cultural consensus leads to devil worship, and since the Constitution can't stop it, we should get back to "civilizational confidence," which I guess means figuring out which Oscar-winning movies are conservative and following their example.

* Sorry, but I do get tired writing it all over again sometimes.

89 comments:

  1. coozledad10:46 AM

    But you can say this for the old civilizational confidence: it knew when to throw the Jews down the well.

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  2. Funny, the decline in good blue-collar jobs is directly correlated with the decline in organized labor (and re-rise of the rentier class).

    Forget Satan, Jonah. Tell us how you much you appreciate labor unions!
    ~

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  3. whetstone11:00 AM

    Conversely, people increasingly look more to government — the police,
    local politicians, and bureaucrats — to solve problems that once could
    have been worked out in a neighborly conversation.


    You know, like restrictive covenants.

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  4. "The Satan statue controversy is of course absurd,..."


    Y'know, he could have stopped right there and done something really fun or productive with the rest of his day, but noooo...

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  5. Bethany Spencer11:10 AM

    How does government crowd out charity?

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  6. coozledad11:12 AM

    The people increasingly "looking more to the police" are the various flavors of authorito/libertarians, except when they want the police to look the other way.


    Bob McDonnell, Christie's, and Dinesh D'Souza's problems are the direct result of neighborly conversations, which have been subpoenaed.

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  7. QuickStriker11:13 AM

    Also, what state-sponsored devil worship? Aren't these the same people who are always telling us putting a huge ass crucifix on the statehouse grounds isn't state sponsorship?

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  8. Bethany Spencer11:14 AM

    Rather, the cause is a breakdown in shared norms, customs, language, and the other often invisible and intangible but no less real sinews that bind a community together.



    I’m all for us sharing norms and customs so long as they’re mine. I’m saying it out loud, Jonah’s saying it quietly.

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  9. JennOfArk11:14 AM

    Sweet Christ, that's even denser than his usual swill. He must have given the intern the day off and attempted to write the thing himself.

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  10. JennOfArk11:17 AM

    Didn't you know? Those guys are only in hot water because they were on Obama's enemies list. Drudge said so, so it must be true.


    (Compare and contrast with the scandal industry of the Clinton era, where anyone within 3 degrees of the Clintons were branded as criminal and dragged through the mud by Ken Starr. Not because of any rightwing enemies list, oh no...because they were one and all BAD PEOPLE and therefore deserved to have to spend their life savings on attorneys to defend themselves for things they hadn't done.)

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  11. moelarryandjesus11:20 AM

    Jonah means we need more squads of pissed-off white guys roaming around with baseball bats to hold "neighborly conversation."

    And why do bad writers love the word "myriad"?

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  12. coozledad11:20 AM

    Nahm!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cGNT-RSkEU

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  13. Bethany Spencer11:20 AM

    Didn't you know? Those guys are only in hot water because they were on Obama's enemies list. Drudge said so, so it must be true.



    Wha--? I don’t even.

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  14. BigHank5311:20 AM

    to solve problems that once could have been worked out in a neighborly conversation.

    You know, like burning a cross on your new neighbor's lawn. Conversationally.

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  15. moelarryandjesus11:21 AM

    Thanks a lot, now I have to watch that Borat clip again...

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  16. Bethany Spencer11:21 AM

    Racist.

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  17. "Conversely, people increasingly look more to government — the police,
    local politicians, and bureaucrats — to solve problems that once could
    have been worked out in a neighborly conversation."

    Yeah, you know... like Hurricane Sandy relief, or the West By God Virginia chemical spill. Used to be, a body could have a nice, friendly conversation with a corporation about not polluting their water or paying a living wage. Now, the NRA insists we all have guns before we have a neighborly conversation.

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  18. Jay B.11:27 AM

    Ah yes, the good old days of neighborly cooperation, like church bombings and the haymarket riots. And the polite, informal way we killed all the natives and took their land. Sure, the whole Kitty Genovese story was a myth more or less, but one thing it showed was the American dedication of neighbors.

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  19. Helmut Monotreme11:30 AM

    So, how does he suggest we regain that ol' civilizational confidence again? Let me guess. Another huge goddamn war. With a draft.

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  20. tigrismus11:32 AM

    Ah yes, the good old days of neighborly cooperation, like church bombings and the haymarket riots.

    Black folks used to be such a huge help to white folks in the old south, and not even for pay!

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  21. tigrismus11:33 AM

    For myriad reasons. DOH!

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  22. Charity is standing there, ready and willing to help the poor and the sick.


    But Government strides right up, gives her an elbow and then stands in front of Charity, blocking the view.
    ~

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  23. coozledad11:35 AM

    Gnome!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJJotGlHaHI

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  24. moelarryandjesus11:35 AM

    Well, it dismays some of those on the left.

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  25. Did you catch the thing about the Ford Pinto?


    Jonah's the world's youngest old fart!

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  26. Once I would have shouted "Jesus Christ!" But now I can only moan "Hail Satan..." Thanks Obama!

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  27. So, is he blaming immigration for the rise of Obama's fascist state, or the necessity for every mouth breather in the heartland to demand open carry? Are gunfights the new "let us reason together, neighbor?"

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  28. Mooser11:49 AM

    Can't you tolerate intolerance?

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  29. Really? You didn't expect that? Man, I've just been waiting for the howls of outrage over Eric Holder being the new Janet Reno and organizing the stalking and judicial murder of civilization's last best hope--the fat guy, the vaginal prober, and the creepy catholic sex fiend and fake intellectual.

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  30. We didn't have to burn no crosses when we could have sundown towns.

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  31. I think this is central to his point-the Haymarket Riots were caused by immigrants. Also Triangle Shirtwaist fire. And the Pinkerton shootings. And lets not forget the Tulsa Race "Riots."

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  32. Mooser11:54 AM

    That's one problem I don't believe Goldberg will have. He's not Jewish.
    And if he is, a neighborly conversation about shared values, and a few drops of water will clear all that up.

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  33. coozledad11:57 AM

    Or the Wilmington massacre:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmington_Insurrection_of_1898



    Or the Kirk/ Holden war.

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  34. Wow! Thanks for that link coozledad. I did not know about that one. Shocking, though not, of course, surprising. But this is exactly what actually grasping US history would cause one to understand--that there were never any ethnically homogenous cities and towns in the US except by dint of riots, violence, and government or non government action. The Wilmington Massacre turns a majority black into a majority white community--sundown towns turned mixed race communities into white enclaves and prevented natural settlement all through the midwest and far west.

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  35. Tiny Hermaphrodite, Esq.12:29 PM

    Usenet, huh? You're old.

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  36. mrstilton12:30 PM

    Andres Serrano's upcoming NEA-funded project.

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  37. "How does government crowd out charity?"

    Why... by not giving them big enough tax breaks, of course, in the same way that those conservative 501c social welfare organizations had their free speech rights so cruelly smashed by jackbooted Chicago-style IRS thugs.

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  38. mrstilton12:33 PM

    Know 'em? I hardly rectum!

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  39. coozledad12:33 PM

    Google "tramp stamps". Father forgive them! They know not which side the button is on!

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  40. Helmut Monotreme12:37 PM

    ...fought the Hun? I thought that the lovely gang of misfits that you outlined was going to guard an internment camp full of Japanese Americans in the desert of Nevada, but then you took it in a completely different direction.

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  41. Bethany Spencer12:46 PM

    Then Government bends over and farts in Charity’s general direction. Government is so rude.

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  42. Spaghetti Lee12:50 PM

    the fat guy, the vaginal prober, and the creepy catholic sex fiend and fake intellectual.


    Avengers....assemble?

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  43. Dr. Hunky Jimpjorps12:52 PM

    The general myth is that rich people would give freely to charity, but government taxes them and spends their money on boring things like road patching and salon licenses, so they're so put out by their money being wasted that they just don't feel like building juvenile cancer clinics or city philharmonics any more.

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  44. mgmonklewis12:54 PM

    Or the Duluth lynchings: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duluth_lynchings

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  45. Spaghetti Lee12:55 PM

    Ah yes, the good ol' Enemies List trope. Sure, it's six years into his presidency, and sure, we've been wrong about it the last 100 times, but Obama's totally gonna start rounding up all the conservatives and FEMA-camping them, we mean it this time you guys!

    This is the best marker of American conservatism's self-absorption, beyond all the political manifest-destiny talk: apparently none of them can even fathom of a conservative actually committing a crime that could land them in jail. Any time it looks like that, it's secretly a conspiracy. That's also the case when any conservative loses their job or says something stupid or is otherwise publicly embarrassed. Never, ever, ever their fault. Yet, somehow, they've gained the reputation as rugged-independent self-sufficient grown-ups.

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  46. I'm trying to figure out how to work "to dismay of some on the Left" into the Satan discussion, but I'm not having much luck.

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  47. mgmonklewis12:55 PM

    Reminiscent "of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights." They are "so bad a kind of grandeur creeps through them."

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  48. I like to think of him as, since the death of Roy Cohn, America's leading walking one-man incitement to Anti-Semitism.

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  49. Mark_B4Zeds1:02 PM

    The inability to work this into the ttdosotl narrative is to the dismay of some on the left. Or is that cheating?

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  50. Mark_B4Zeds1:04 PM

    So were Pinta and Santa Maria.

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  51. redoubt1:04 PM

    ("Before we do any prahject, we're gonna tahlk abaht shahp safety.")

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  52. No, that has a certain satisfingly meta quality.
    :-)

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  53. Gromet1:11 PM

    Haha, covenants. When my parents bought their first home, they had to be approved by a panel that would determine whether an exception to the local covenant should be made for them. It was only a formality of course, because this was 1972 New Jersey, but the official neighborhood policy was NO CATHOLICS. By all means, Jonah, let's wish our way back to the paradise this country was when that panel really meant it. The cohesion must have been so exciting.

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  54. Bethany Spencer1:13 PM

    No, thank you!

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  55. Cato the Censor1:14 PM

    I think Jonah Goldberg should be stripped, scourged, and nailed to a cross. Whoops, sorry, wrong religion. I think JG should be stretched out across a God-cursed altar, have his heart cut out with an eldritch blade, and have the beating organ offered up to the Goat of Mendes. That is, if they could ever find the thing amid all the adipose tissue.

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  56. Bethany Spencer1:14 PM

    This is my problem with a lot of wingnut columns and his specifically--they talk in generalities. I can’t nail down what the fuck they’re talking about.

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  57. redoubtagain1:15 PM

    OK, so: Legacy Hire is Threatened By Diversity, Encourages Americans To Ignore First Amendment of the Constitution

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  58. Gromet1:18 PM

    The conservatives I know IRL have a simpler method when their guys are caught with a hand in the till: just wave it off and say, as if we're sharing a good laugh, "Eh, all those guys do it! It's just the way it works. You can't really trust anyone." [Does not apply to Democrats. In event of Democratic scandal, become enraged, denounce entire left wing, claim this is worst thing you've ever seen, demand resignations, trials, prison terms.]

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  59. Tiny Hermaphrodite, Esq.1:21 PM

    I can’t nail down what the fuck they’re talking about.

    To the dismay of some on the left, this is feature and not a bug.

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  60. If you're Reconstructionist, what's a "Jew?"

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  61. BigHank531:23 PM

    Government at least has to attempt to treat everyone the same, whereas charity can pick and choose. Thus the undeserving cough*blacks-sluts-wetbacks*cough don't get their filthy paws on the hard-earned money of conservative white folks.

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  62. Sorry, Little My, but downvoted for GAAAAAAAAAAAH!

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  63. Gromet1:24 PM

    If liberals get their way, Columbus came here on the Satan Maria.

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  64. Mooser1:24 PM

    "I can’t nail down what the fuck they’re talking about."


    I'd be glad to sum it up for you: When the Federal Government outlawed racial (and other) discrimination by the States, all hope for America was lost. All the rest is commentary.

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  65. Tiny Hermaphrodite, Esq.1:24 PM

    I would guess that actual Anti-Semites of Cohn's era were more incited by the Rosenbergs, to the dismay of some on the left.

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  66. satch1:25 PM

    Jay Gould:


    "I could hire one half of the working class to kill the other half, after a neighborly conversation."

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  67. but Obama's totally gonna start rounding up all the conservatives and FEMA-camping them, we mean it this time you guys!


    Tease.

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  68. What's an ass crucifix?
    One with an extra crossbar.

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  69. BigHank531:27 PM

    Probably more of a coagulation. Not that you wanted to be thinking about the Derp Voltron.

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  70. Tiny Hermaphrodite, Esq.1:27 PM

    To the dismay of some on the left!

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  71. "We did, though."

    "Oh, yeah, sure, everyone has hobbies. But the point is, we didn't have to."

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  72. ...and i'll form the FAAAARRRT

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  73. Gromet1:31 PM

    It is easily in my 10 favorite movies of all time. It gets funnier every time I see it. The way Ruth Gordon's bracelets jingle as she explains the honor of being chosen by Satan -- it's perfect. A perfect movie.

    I have no idea if it's liberal or conservative, though.

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  74. Or the Kirk/ Holden war.


    Ended almost immediately when Caulfield pointed out that the snooty starship captain was just another big phony.

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  75. Mooser1:33 PM

    Do they contradict themselves? and why not, they contain myriads.



    Although i wonder about Jonah, with his gustatory tendencies and his antipathy to untamed nature. Is he gearing up to reverse his namesake's Biblical misadventure?

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  76. satch1:33 PM

    Oh God yes... like Ted Nugent claiming that if Obama were re-elected, "By this time next year, I'll either be dead or in jail." Ted's self esteem must have been crushed when he realized that he's not worth the energy Obama would have needed to expend to order him killed.

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  77. Examples, please? Just what the fuck is he talking about?


    Well, the other evening, I was trying to open a new jar of pickles--- dill spears because they were out of the whole ones--- and the lid was really stuck. So rather than try the old tricks of my parents' generation (differential heating, those hard-to-find heavyweight rubber grippy things, etc), I simply called up a bureaucrat. Thanks, Obama!

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  78. Gromet1:38 PM

    Thank you, Bethany. I was just going to write an overly long post saying what you just said in two sentences. They satisfy themselves merely by gesturing toward some grand principle... but how the hell does it apply? Not their problem. The important thing is the principle -- Cohesion! Liberty! -- and it must be left untainted by the compromise that reality would bring. So they can't address the actual issue, which becomes the elephant, or in this case the Satan statue, in the room.

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  79. I think JG should be stretched out across a God-cursed altar, have his
    heart cut out with an eldritch blade, and have the beating organ offered
    up to the Goat of Mendes.


    To the dismay of some on the left. And probably the Goat.

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  80. Speaking as a Red Sea Pedestrian, I can attest to the fact that I loathed Cohn about as much as any public figure in my lifetime. If there truly was a vengeful God of the old testament, he would have smote that world class shitweasel with a bolt of lighting even before he hooked up with McCarthy, let alone in his later career as a power broker/

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  81. Wrangler1:44 PM

    In so, so many ways. Like, if you have a soup kitchen, the damn county actually wants you to obey the health code. And I'm like, "What? Just because we serve food?" And the government is like, "Yep. Also, congrats on that new $50,000 government grant so you build a new transitional living facility. That should be a huge boon to your clients." And I'm like, you know, internally, "These fuckin' g-men. They just wrap you up in red tape and throw you off a bridge. What do they know about community?"

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  82. chuckling1:45 PM

    Strange that an urban frat boy like Goldberg would regurgitate that lost neighborly sentiment, but it a very real feeling for a large swathe of the voting public. To the dismay of some on the left, all too many coastal liberals are unable to empathize with their country cousins on this point. Those of us living in soho, noho, weho, or whatever direction ho, or the new wherever ho being gentrified across the bay do not see the devastation wrought by Walmart, union busting, and incompetent Republican government. Pretty much any block in Park Slope is a far more neighborly place than you'll find out in the ustabe white picket fence America that is now a wasteland of abandoned downtowns, woebegone strip malls, and empty playgrounds. It's sad, sad I tells ya. And the Republicans speak to that sadness. Even a sorry piece of shit like Goldberg does it better, or at least more effectively, than just about any liberal.


    Last night, for example, I was at a girls basketball game in a small gym out in Rurality and sat next to a 5th grade teacher. We got to talking, as they say, and once she got comfortable with me, did an epic takedown of conservative education policy and the many specific ways in which it was destroying education for the majority of children and the quality of life for the majority of teachers. So as I've taught myself to do towards the end of these conversations, I asked her if she votes. And as is always the case, she answered with some version of "you're darn tootin I vote!!!." After which I ask if she votes against Republicans. Ah, no, the answer, as I'm finding typical, is that she votes for the person not the party. But by her demeanor, I can tell she votes almost exclusively Republican.


    So there's your challenge. Mine actually. Why does an obviously well-educated, very intelligent person whose life and the lives of many she loves, vote for the people that are destroying those lives? Why does a person who longs for the neighborly times of the past support the policies that make so many people unneighborly?


    I have a few ideas, but I think for most of us it's much easier to have ideas than it is to have empathy. And without empathy, our ideas are just sweeter smelling variations on Goldberg's farts.

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  83. merl11:45 PM

    Or Stand Your Ground laws.

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  84. Bethany Spencer1:45 PM

    YOU'RE NOT WATCHING HARD ENOUGH.

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  85. Jay B.1:47 PM

    Nothing says "hello neighbor" like looking down the barrel of a shotgun.

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