...so long as this site stays live, I’ll be talking about reclaiming our constitutional birthrights. About fighting tyranny, whether it comes in the jackboots of a leftist administrative state or little fuzzy bunny slippers looking out for my kids’ dietary needs...
This country is, in my honest opinion — and said without an ounce of intended drama — done. Gone. But that doesn’t mean I have to stop fighting.
I take solace in the fact that many of us are left who won’t let the conclusion of this coup come easily.Though he thinks the country no longer exists, Goldstein approves the movement to secede from the former United States via online petitions -- "few believe anything will come of it, though I signed all that I could find" -- and claims counter-petitioners who called the neo-Confederates "mentally deficient" and advocated "more education in our state to eradicate their disease" were not just making harmless jokes at the expense of same, but "wish to control us, take our liberties, and force us into a kind of 'progressive,' happy-faced indentured servitude... [they] offer as a solution to the disease of American exceptionalism more leftwing propaganda driven through a union-controlled, heavily leftwing education system."
William Teach of Right Wing News also thinks making fun of him and his buddies is fascist: "Progressives (read 'fascists') hate when people other than themselves are accorded First Amendment Rights."
"Given the great divide in the country, I would love to leave the liberals to their leeching ways without a host," fantasizes Freedom Eden. And don't think she hasn't thought it through: "I'd like Wisconsin to secede, but how could we leave Milwaukee and Madison behind? Milwaukee would be easy enough to drop because it's located on the state's eastern border. Madison would be more messy. Maybe we could get the Madison libs to move to Milwaukee..." See, they've learned a few things since Fort Sumter. No more waiting for war to carve out new states -- just quarantine the moochers of the major cities, and you'll have sustainable mini-Valhallas -- just like East Germany and West Berlin!
In case you were wondering what comes after Karl Rove, here ya go. See you in 2016!
little fuzzy bunny slippers looking out for my kids’ dietary needs
ReplyDelete*sigh* Remember when it was relatively uncontroversial for the government to take an interest in promoting the health of its citizens, especially its children? Flouridation encountered some resistance from (surprise, surprise) conservatives, but it ultimately ended up becoming ubiquitous in the US without anyone really giving a shit. Massive vaccination efforts for polio and smallpox were organized without an entire major political party decrying it as socialism. When you try that nowadays, you get shot down quickly, as with the tragic failure of a mass HPV vaccination effort. Though to be fair, the argument against the HPV vaccine wasn't just "socialism," but also "ew, icky lady parts."
So Goldstein signed secession petitions for states in which he doesn't even live? Represent!
ReplyDeleteI take solace in the fact that many of us are left who won’t let the conclusion of this coup come easily.
ReplyDeleteA free and fair electoral coup is the worst sort.
I would love to leave the liberals to their leeching ways without a host
I was just reading the comments on Dana Milbank's WaPo piece (DON'T JUDGE ME!), a piece in which he explains the federal money received to federal taxes paid ratio and how most of these red states are the takers suckling on blue state teat and not in the sexy way, and yet many commenters still don't get it; they insist blue states will collapse without red states bailing us out because SOCIALISM. I guess it's the same thing that led to their being thoroughly surprised that the polls were skewing D because more people were voting D, that facts and figures are ignorable when they contradict received wisdom.
Ah yes, the tyranny of the USRDA. We were born free, and yet everywhere are in 2,000-calorie chains.
ReplyDeleteCan you imagine what Goldstein would have sounded like if he'd said that WITH drama? It is to tremble!
ReplyDeleteIf you want a picture of the future, imagine a dick slapping into a tyrant's face - forever.
ReplyDeleteDearest Brittnie, Oh how I long to leave this wretched place! We have been camped here, just west of the foodcourt, for two nights. Our scouts report no enemy movement, but this Sears is particularly large and our commander dare not lead us too far from the Chick fil A, lest our supply lines be cut. Sadly, there is still no word from your beloved cousin Justin and his squad. But their Applebees is a strong defensive position, and we can expect reinforcements soon now that Alabama is out of the national championship race. Be brave, Brittnie! Your loving, Kodie
ReplyDeleteI think it may well be fair to blame a segment of the liberal establishment, particularly education professionals and sociologists, for the dire straights we as a country find ourselves in. It seems likely that many conservative bloggers have become what they are due to liberals encouraging parents to allow their children to lead rich fantasy lives and to give them positive feedback no matter how silly their ideas. Of course that doesn't explain everything. Those not ruined by liberalism are likely the result of fetal alcohol syndrome, blows to the head by an angry stepfather, or other types of physical abuse by their religious parents or priests.
ReplyDeleteBut on a less serious note, I am concerned about the direction the press, particularly the more progressive outlets are heading. This trend of finding some obscure cracker who says something outrageous and then going full-on self-riteous about it is straight out from Part I of the right wing radio/Limbaugh playbook. And they don't even get to part II, which is where mainstream Republican politicians would be hounded mercilessly until they publicly denounce the wackos. Not often enough, anyway.
If that sounds like some kind of criticism of Roy, it's not. Artfully tickling the bones of rightbloggers as done here is far from the organized propaganda I'm finding so distasteful. I like it, obviously. And full-on self-righteousness? Please.
I get that it kinda feels good to get angry at the right wing nut cases and those who rile them up and use them, but sooner or later those same tactics will produce riled up left wing nut cases just as nasty and clueless. For the most part, I've just quit watching and reading. Haven't seen MSNBC for over a year and took Raw Story and TPM off my shortcut bar.
Did he write that before storming to his bedroom, while shouting "I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!"
ReplyDeleteRepublicans, the emo teenyboppers of politics.
Yes, what we need is to reach out and reason with folks like Jeff. I'm sure if we just patiently talk to them, they'll see the error of their worldview.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, for those of us who are older than 40 and remember a time when politically correct lefties would drone on and on about responsibility and the system -- well, I'm sure most of us here made fun of them too.
But I do agree with you about MSNBC, they suck.
"I'd like Wisconsin to secede, but how could we leave Milwaukee and Madison behind?"
ReplyDeleteThis seems likely given how soundly Wisconsin rejected Obama's agenda last week. What, you mean he won the state by 7 points and suggestions that he wouldn't take it were made-up fantasy bullshit? Well that just proves my point.
I'm tempted to do the same thing ;-)
ReplyDeleteDidn't mean to imply clowns at Goldstein/Goldberg's level shouldn't be ridiculed by the likes of us. Was just off on a bit of a tangent after a periodic catching-up-with-what-somersby's-been-bitching-about session.
ReplyDeleteWhen reality contradicts wingnut assumptions, it's reality that's wrong.
ReplyDeleteThere are still freakouts about fluoridation. And not just from Birchers. Lefties do it too.
ReplyDeleteSomeone needs to spread the rumor that the petitions website is actually being used, along with firearm background checks, to collect names of people to go in the FEMA camps that are presently becoming fully functional. ;^)
ReplyDeleteWe have a leftist press running point and providing rhetorical cover for
ReplyDeletea leftist campaign to overthrow our constitutional system. To all
of these people, the ends justify the means. That is the essence of
the “anti-foundationalism” preached by leftist academics who daily work
to delegitimate the Enlightenment paradigm under which our system of
governance was born
Oh no. You have caught us leftist academics out, Godlstein. Today was an examination of historical-libidinal materialism and the tyranny of bourgeois production of bodies, and tomorrow the subaltern will speak countering the appropriative subjectivism of phenomenology, taking the transcendental subject right out of Kantianism. That subaltern will speak good and hard.
Oh wait, no, that's not happening. We are actually going to talk about how mis-used apostrophes obscure meaning in formal writing, and how Kingdom of Heaven is bollocks as far as Crusades history goes.
Yeop, my landlord is hardcore anti-fluoridation and has tried to get me to read books about it. Also believes in lizard people and tried to tell me that gardasil causes colon cancer.
ReplyDeleteThe aim of all political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and a super-size option on the menu.
ReplyDeleteYears from now the history books will talk about the 'cockslap heard round the world'.
ReplyDelete"Little Fuzzy Bunny Slippers Looking Out for My Kids’ Dietary Needs" was one of my favorite Zappa tunes.
ReplyDeleteand said without an ounce of intended drama
ReplyDeleteOr irony, apparently.
but sooner or later those same tactics will produce riled up left wing nut cases just as nasty and clueless
ReplyDeleteProbably not. Compassion is one of the things that separates liberalism from conservatism.
Anyway, most of the clueless lefties I know are New Age types who can't grasp that astrology makes exactly as much sense as Christianity. They're not really paying enough attention to DC or the punditry to get all that angry about it.
Jeff Goldstein, warrior of the Enlightenment: I may not agree with what you have to say, and I will defend to your death my right to tell you that!
ReplyDeleteI've never seen any anti-fluoridation rhetoric from the left, but I could see it coming from the anti-vaxxers and ALL NATURAL types.
ReplyDeleteBut fluoridation happened. There was not enough political or civic pressure to stop it. There was enough (mostly political) pressure to stop the HPV vaccine from joining the ranks of the polio, smallpox, tetanus, etc. vaccines.
Look, look, Jeff hates democracy. See Jeff's massive persecution complex. See Jeff's new high-tech assault weaponry. Compensate, Jeff, compensate.
ReplyDelete(Pity the kids. Seriously.)
"...so long as this site remains live..."
ReplyDeleteWow... Goldstein comes just so close to approximating the "THIS is London" vibe from Edward R. Murrow. And didn't we all learn from William Shirer and Tom Brokaw how thoroughly the Nazis mastered the use of eye-rolling mockery and irony in their ruthless, brutal campaign to extinguish the light of freedom across Europe? Damn... when did the Right become such drama queens?
When I was a kid in the late 50s/60s the Gov used to send "vision (or tooth) -mobiles" (vans) around to school and test our sight, hearing, even teeth. We got inoculations (we called them "shots" and didn't like 'em) for Polio, Smallpox, TB and some other things. School lunches cost 25¢ a day, and free if necessary. They had veges (ug) milk, protein and starch elements and a desert!, usually fruit-something. Pencils and papers and text-books were FREE and could be taken home to study.
ReplyDeleteA "vote up" for this doesn't quite do it. LOVE.
ReplyDeleteWho are you going to believe, Karl Rove or your lyin' eyes?
ReplyDeleteUh, that's a rhetorical question, Mr. Adelson....
When did he start his blog? Before that, but no one is as bitchy as Goldy
ReplyDeleteIn addition to leaving them guns, he can also bequeath them Borderline Personality Disorder
ReplyDeleteYou mean there aren't meetings? Goldstein thought missing too many meetings was why he wasn't offered a gig. He has figured out that a) thre is no conspiracy and b) everyone thought he was a dick independent of meetings
ReplyDeleteThe comment loves you back. I've got Channing Tatum lined up to read Kodie's letters. David Alan Grier will be voicing Alan West.
ReplyDeleteFirst they came for the tumblr memes.
ReplyDeleteand i did not speak up, because my account had been suspended for making racist death threats.
Dear pathetic loser baby drama queens: elections have consequences. Get over it.
ReplyDeleteI don't know why we need to accept those guys as "left". The only thing they share in common with the left is nonconformism, generally, and they frequently have shockingly reactionary opinions on race, gender, culture, and labor.
ReplyDeleteI tend to refer to people like that as "cultural liberals". A lot of them end up voting Republican later in life, because their loose cultural attachment to the left didn't extend to actual principles.
As I do not have an epic comment in me at this moment, lettuce remember HTML's masterpiece.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sadlyno.com/archives/2902.html
~
Jesus Christ, these creeps are delusional. I know it should be funny, but really, it's not. I can't even pity them, they're that hateful, stupid, mean and selfish.
ReplyDeleteProgressives (read 'fascists')...
ReplyDeleteHey, you know who else gained political power through propaganda, appeals to nativism and reactionary religious beliefs, red-baiting, anti-intellectuallism, cynical exploitation of economic weakness, and relentless attacks on the existing government's legitimacy? Because William Teach sure as fuck doesn't.
You know, the nation really cries out for HTML. I wonder if burnt offerings will bring him back . . .
ReplyDeleteGiven the current makeup of the Republican party you can't really fault him for the lizard people thing.
ReplyDeleteOoh, I like this idea. Can someone stomach calling Rush's show and posing as a wingnut to get this started? I would, but I'd probably start giggling and give the game away.
ReplyDeleteI take it your not a fan of Jonah Goldberg's magnum opus...
ReplyDeleteAh, yes. Good times.
ReplyDeleteWell, they moved quickly from denial to anger, but I think they're going to stay there. Bargaining is not their style, and acceptance? Ha!
ReplyDelete"so long as this site stays live"... ehrmagerd, GoDaddy is going to send Danica Patrick in the Obamamobile to run over his server! While the Fuzzy Bunny Slipper Ninjas steal into his house in the dead of night to insert stealth vitamins into his kids' Moon Pies and RC Cola. Godlstein counters the concept of the banality of evil with the even more banal-with-an-emphasis-on-anal rebellion of the dregs of the Tea Party. Make fun of their online petition and two more will take its place, each slightly more butthurt than the original!
ReplyDeleteYou mean there are wingnuts who don't already believe this?
ReplyDeleteHave the Brits no mercy? First they taunted poor Mitt Romney with a celebration of the National Health Service at the Olympics opening ceremony, then they rammed compassion down out throats with the PBS series "Call The (gummint sponsored) Midwife". Fortunately, the Conservative campaign to instill self reliance across Amurika will continue apace, if Goldstein and Teach have anything to say about it!
ReplyDeleteThis trend of finding some obscure cracker who says something outrageous and then going full-on self-riteous about it is straight out from Part I of the right wing radio/Limbaugh playbook.
ReplyDeleteUm, no.
Two words--"Tea Party".
Two more words--"Donald Trump".
That's just for starters. They turn the rocks over on themselves.
ehrmagerd, GoDaddy is going to send Danica Patrick in the Obamamobile to run over his server!
ReplyDeleteWell, I just hope they film that.
His Twitter account is still active, FWIW.
ReplyDeleteI hope you are going to do the visuals in sepia, with a slow dissolve.
ReplyDeleteEdit: a tiny dick slapping into a tyrant's face.
ReplyDeleteI don't think many people know that the entire Government concern about the health of the American population as a population stems from the fact that when they first had mass induction for WWI so many of the draftees were too stunted, sick, and malnourished to serve. It is then that the government began collecting data on just how poverty stricken and malnourished the majority of fighting age men were.
ReplyDeleteAs for the fate of the immigrants--their health care needs were the concern of the settlement house workers introducing them to the food and health and safety issues that beset a formerly peasant population in an urbanized, factory/sweatshop based economy.
So you could argue that governmental concern about the health of its citizenry is an outgrowth of 1) militarism, 2) the 1918 flu epidemic, and 3) gross fears of plague and improper parenting among immigrant groups.
aimai
I was wondering who would be the first to throw that (!) in our faces.
ReplyDeleteI think the lesson I received from the entire of the recent election is that there are no "obscure crackers" saying "outrageous things" that are not entirely representative of some significant portion of the right wing electorate at this point. In fact, au contraire. Because of the relatively small number of radio hosts, the unified field theory of Fox News, Newsmax, etc..etc...etc... its basically John Bircherite Squirrels all the way down. There is no breathing space between, for example, the guy who argued that the mandate wasn't a legitimate excercise of governmental authority and the argument that was eventually placed before the Supreme Court even though at the time the (law professor) made it the argument was understood to have literally zero basis in legal reasoning or fact.
ReplyDeleteDitto the epistemic closure (to gag myself with a phrase) that led Dick Morris and Peggy Noonan's crazy talk about polls and pollsters to be perfectly mainstream up until reality hit them in the face like a Jeep Cherokee rolling off the Ohio line. If you were to read any random "cracker" on any random thread at NRO or wherever you absolutely did not find those guys spewing random and novel theories of the election, or the electorate, or Republican goals. From tenther stuff to promoting the selection of Senators (rather than their election) to floridation to benghazi the fringe simply repeats the beliefs and statements of the center, and vice versa.
aimai
Ah, well, really, I expect nothing less from Jeff "A Man's Home Is His Fuckin' Fortress" Godlstein. The guy's turning into an agoraphobe with guns--which is no surprise, threatened as he is by most of the outside world, including fuzzy bunny slippers.
ReplyDeleteI give him six months before he's shooting at the mail carrier and the meter readers.
Not to mention Downtown Abbey and Upstairs, Downstairs which push the vicious liberal myth that traditional class stratification was sometimes less-than-perfect for all involved parties.
ReplyDeleteI will give Goldstein one thing. He's obviously had a good deal of education and it hasn't helped him.
ReplyDelete"Progressives (read 'fascists') hate when people other than themselves are accorded First Amendment Rights."
ReplyDeleteNah, we love it when they exercise their First Amendment Rights, becuase it's hilarious.
so long as this site stays live
ReplyDeleteJust more fund-raising & begging from Mr. Mom. Hell, the leftist elected coup gov't. would never shut down J.G.'s site; he's much too useful as a bad example.
My beloved Daniel - I just received word that we are shipping out to assist the beleaguered Austinites. The artisanal food truck convoy was ambushed outside New Braunfels by the 101st Hoverounds. I am told Johnny Red descended upon the food trucks, and took what they would eat, but they burned the organic produce rather than consume it. We are stopping for biodiesel in San Antonio and then it is on to Austin. All of my love, Lt. Steve Reynolds, PFC, Army of Massachusetts.
ReplyDeleteAnd "Ashokan Farewell" on the soundtrack.
ReplyDeletethe Nazis mastered the use of eye-rolling mockery and irony
ReplyDeleteThe Deadly Joke was developed in conjunction with the V2:
"There were zwei peanuts walking down the strasse. And one of them was assaulted...peanut".
These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the
ReplyDeletesunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of the 32-ounce soda cup; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of
man and woman.
Ici Protein Wisdom! Les goobers paranoïdes parlent aux goobers paranoïdes!
ReplyDeletemy favorite diderot critique was the one about how different the tahitian cockslap was from the western europeans'.
ReplyDeleteYou jest, but I have it on good authority that that's the _real_ reason why they call them "chain restaurants."
ReplyDeletewho can forget the burning of the komedy storetag, or andy kaufmannacht?
ReplyDeleteAnd if you want to throw yourself into a political party that champions the Enlightenment, you'd pretty much have to pick the one that just spent an election cycle speculating about Ye Magickal Womb-Humours.
ReplyDelete"few believe anything will come of it, though I signed all that I could find"
ReplyDeleteGood for you! Concentrate on practical measures.
Why not Allen West? He needs a job after all
ReplyDeletePlus panning from side to side, followed by narrow and wide angles on the action.
ReplyDeleteSCENE: Interior. Suburban food court. Day.
Extreme closeup: center of a stale Cinnabon, camera slowly racking out to a wider angle on the otherwise empty tray, covered now with nothing but parchment paper and forlorn crumbs.
Fade to....
Jonah Goldberg whispered it to him once
ReplyDeletemainly for the Danica Patrick part?
ReplyDeleteThe neighbors are already reporting him to the cops for the weirdness and the cleaning of the guns while staring at them.
ReplyDeleteJeff has no idea why they keep oppressing him! At lest no one will say "he kept to himself" or "I could never see that happening" after he snaps [further]
...but only when they're not in power.
ReplyDeleteYou know who gets to see Downton Abbey early? Precisely! This is truly fascism, my friends. [Tucks Shirt furiously.]
ReplyDeleteWhen you're idea of an ideal country with more freedom involves a partitioned state in the mold of West/East Germany, you may in fact not be entirely clear on the whole freedom concept.
ReplyDeleteThat's very true. It turns out that a belief in the equality of all humans is more central to liberalism than shopping at Whole Foods.
ReplyDeleteGoldstein, leaping up in front of the Dallas Cowboys heavy metal band Free Reign:
ReplyDelete"Play Are You Ready For Some Football! PLAY IT!!!"
Jerry Jones, suddenly realizing he can no longer remain neutral in the struggle between Good and Evil, nods...
FTW. Well done.
ReplyDeleteNO! (Ix-nay with the et-over-it-gay.) Stay strong, patriots! Resist! Resist! Take everything personally, catastrophize anything not nailed down, make up boogie-man leftist nemeses and then feel REAL FEAR in contemplation of them, write your dependably frothing blog posts in a stirring blend of John of Patmos, Thomas Paine, and Jacqueline Susann and, if all else fails--which it will, O noble nitwit--secede! I.e., be a man!
ReplyDeletePerfect reality check.
ReplyDeleteIf at first you do not secede, try try again.
ReplyDeleteTyranny comes
ReplyDeletein fuzzy bunny slippers
It sits looking
out for my kids’ dietary needs
on silent haunches
and STAYS FOREVER.
"without an ounce of intended drama"
ReplyDeleteHang about, isn't Goldstein the strict auctorial intentionalist? Is he here admitting the possibility of unintended drama?
For Steve Reynolds and the rest of the New Englanders, the advance on Austin was deceptively easy. It was not until they were just past Buda -- within sight of Austin City Limits -- that they met resistance. The vanguard of the "Texas! Woooo! Awesum!" Batallion, made up primarily of A&M students, had made a quick advance along Ben White Blvd and had now blocked the interstate with a massive bonfire. The Aggies had a reputation for ferocity, and they'd been drinking . . .
ReplyDeleteHe'll have died with his boots on before we get the script finished.
ReplyDeleteA fair share of the freakouts about vaccination and fluoride comes from the New Age alt-med direction, but when someone's worldview is built on the premise that "It's all about ME", I am not convinced that the New Age crowd are actually "left-wing".
ReplyDeleteJerry Jones picked a side in that particular struggle a long time ago, my friend. A long time ago.
ReplyDeleteLots more humor and insight there than found in this shithole, that's for sure. And the writing here? Pipsquawkery, from ugly, angry little nobodies.
ReplyDelete"Pipsquawkery"? Clang the trolley bell, lads and lasses; this one's the cat's pajamas when it comes to the japery!
ReplyDelete(BTW, "insight" isn't usually a synonym for "too stupid to recognize 'fascism' if it were slapping him in the face with a 'Gott Mit Uns' belt buckle at a book burning." Though perhaps that's actually the "humor" part ... unintentionally, which was BBBB's point.)
Whoops, sorry to ratchet up the pipsquawkery again. That's just the sort of jackanapes I am.
When I was a young man, the older folks in my community would refer to such folks as "educated beyond their intelligence". When it comes to Mr. Goldstein, I think they were on to something.
ReplyDeleteWell, he's in Colorado, so possession of up to an ounce of intended drama is now legal.
ReplyDeletealso too illiterate to read modern weapons manuals!!
ReplyDelete"force us into a kind of 'progressive,' happy-faced indentured servitude"
ReplyDeleteTranslation: "they're just like the people at the home, that told me I should take my pills to make the voices go away"
Seriously - the RW response to the election has been one part petulant teenager and one part paranoid schizophrenic...