Smith is pissed for a couple of reasons. For one thing, this initiative proceeds from the same thinking that got Bloomberg to make fast food joints post calories, which doesn't appear to change patrons' eating habits, at least not in the short term we've had to observe its effect. Fair enough, though letting people know something about what's in the food they eat is a pretty benign intervention, and seems to work well enough with packaged food labeling, unless you think citizens have no business knowing whether their dessert topping is mostly chemicals or if an energy bar will send them into anaphylactic shock.
But what really seems to bug Smith is something he mainly expresses with old rightwing memes and overwrought innuendo: that the Nudge Squad is oppressive. For instance:
This person was a senior at Yale as of 2007, but now she gets to tell you how to live your life. Sorry: encourage you to make choices that will make you happier...
Remember when FDR, more or less admitting he was clueless about economics, promised, and delivered, an era of “bold, persistent experimentation”? Obama means it literally. We’re all being targeted for “behavioral interventions.” But only after randomized, controlled trials. Which don’t sound scary. At all. (Just don’t say that in a German accent.)...
...[Susstein] was boasting in a Harvard working paper that [the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs'] central responsibilities, as defined by Obama’s Executive Order 13563, amounted to “a kind of mini-constitution for the regulatory state.” That sounds a bit immodest. And aren’t constitutions, even cute mini- ones, supposed to come up for a vote?Similarly, shouldn't people walking around with stapleguns have a concealed-carry permit? Inevitably:
The new paternalism of Obama appointees is very much in tune with the boss. In a neverending series of campaign speeches, he’s taken to saying things like, “That means whatever executive authority I have to help the middle class, I’ll use it.” And, “We’re going to do everything we can, wherever we can, with or without Congress.”It's all part of the seamless garment of ObamaHitler. By the way, Smith refers to the recruitment e-mail of the Nudge Squad, properly known as the Behavioral Insights Team, but does not link to it. Here it is, and here are some of the previous interventions the Team uses as models:
Increasing college enrollment and retention: Providing streamlined personal assistance on the FAFSA form (e.g., pre-populating forms using tax return data and following up with a personal call) to low or moderate income individuals resulted in a 29% greater likelihood of their attending college for two consecutive years...
Improving academic performance: Students taught to view their intelligence as a “muscle” that can grow with hard work and perseverance (as compared to a “fixed trait”, such as eye-color) experienced academic boosts of 1/2 a letter grade, with the largest effects often seen for low-performing students, students of color, or females in STEM-related courses.Why, that's just how the Third Reich started.
Conservatives are always wondering aloud why they couldn't win in 2012 against a sitting president with a shit economy, and I keep explaining that it's because people think they're nuts. I used to assume they couldn't hear me because I don't have large BUY GOLD ads on my website, but I'm beginning to think no one can reach them.
Smith had a small but perfectly legitimate grievance -- that the government might be wasting money on an unproven social-science boondoggle -- but he knew that, as a Post columnist, he couldn't hold his barking readership's attention unless he laid on the totalitarian imagery good and thick. The result pleases people who agree with him that politically-correct race-pimping arugula-muching Liberal Fascists have turned America into a Union of Soviet Socialist Community Organizers, but when they try it on normal people it sends them backing nervously out the door. Even a dim person would have figured this out by now; I begin to think they're not serious about winning.
When all you have is a stubbed toe, everything resembles a self inflicted hammer.
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing more terrifying than a German saying the phrase "randomized controlled trials"
ReplyDeleteWhat's particularly funny is that I was just recently reading how David Cameron's embrace of "nudge theory" is a triumph of conservatism.
ReplyDeleteEverything becomes sinister with a German accent. Take, for example, "Would the table like some appetizers?" With a German accent, it takes on a whole new menace. Add a dramatic pause before "appetizers" and you may as well kill yourself.
ReplyDelete"I begin to think they're not serious about winning."
ReplyDelete--he said, tongue in cheek. True. Because it's all pathology. Every day I have variations of the same question: How do you solve a problem like mania? How do you hold a lunatic in your hand? If it's up to us, as the amateur blogosphere peanut gallery, to mock and critique, that's fine. But it will never stop, will it? Strike down one idiotic, unself-aware wingnut, and twenty more will arise to take his place. Well, fine. Or am I missing something?
SO true. As someone (I myself) once said, "German-accented English is the international language for demented sadism."
ReplyDeleteWinning? What th' fuck kind of fun is winning? Look at what happened that last time they won: two wars that everyone hates now (and we didn't even get any cheap oil out of 'em), billions of dollars poured down the rathole of "faith-based initiatives" but abortion is still legal and school prayer is not, gay marriage has gotten tired of the holding pattern and is lining up on the runway, no thanks to those two reactionary Supreme Court justices, and to top it all off, the damn coloreds have gotten so damn uppity there's one sitting in the White House right now. Fuck winning. It's a shitload of thankless work and whiny citizens and there's too many rules to follow. Fuck the whole load of that and check out the new plan: we'll skip all that striving and work and comprimise and more work and negotiating and triumph and failure and all that shit--we're gonna go straight from naked ambition right to self-pity.
ReplyDeleteIn 1984, only 14% of people used seat belts. All those "buckle up and save lives" posters just weren't doing the job. So, the first state law requiring vehicle occupants to wear seat belts went into effect that year. Soon all other states followed suit. And by 2012, the use rate of seat belts soared to 86% (with a 26% drop in unrestrained occupant vehicle fatalities in just the last 15 years).
ReplyDeleteClearly, since Mr. Smith is so concerned about the efficacy of such mildly persuasive techniques as calorie labels, he'd support the obvious solution: strict laws mandating lower calorie consumption (Strenge Gesetze Mandatierung niedrigeren Kalorienverbrauch auf Deutsch).
If I turn down my rationality dial, I can actually understand where Kyle (and every other conservative who's made the same point) is coming from. I've written a bit of SF about governmental abuse of behavioral science. The difference being that unlike these guys, I always knew I was writing fiction.
ReplyDeleteAlso, mine involved something a bit more sinister than putting fruit in the impulse buy section.
(Also it was set on the moon)
You mean like "Let's practice medicine?"
ReplyDeleteFirst they came for the low to moderate income individuals--well, they didn't really come for them, but they prepopulated their tax return data, and I didn't speak out, because I wasn't a user of FAFSA.
ReplyDeleteAnd then they came for the low-performing, the students of color, the females--well, they didn't really come for them, but taught them that intelligence is not immutable, and I didn't speak out, because I wasn't taking a STEM course.
And then they came for the fast food--well, they didn't really come for them, but put labels on them, and we spoke out because that shit just got real.
Given the number of unqualified Liberty College graduates (hello Monica Goodling!) who were employed by the Bush Maladministration, Smith would do well to STFU.
ReplyDeleteVeronika Moser doesn't seem so sinister. Nasty, but sinister.
ReplyDeleteSilly liberals! Everybody knows that the only acceptable behavioral interventions are waterboarding and extended solitary confinement.
ReplyDeleteViolins? Jaysus.
ReplyDeleteWhat Smith seems to miss is that there're a great many legitimate gripes about Sunstein, not the least of which is that he displayed a noticeable streak of free-market *cough* cost/benefit analysis *retch* in his role in the White House. This "nudge" business was just doodling around the edges of the paper.
Now, maybe Sunstein's objective is to raise college enrollment for truly altruistic purposes, but, these days, getting low-performance, low-income kids in college for "two consecutive years" means a lot of kids without degrees and staggeringly large school loans, too. I doubt that Sunstein would think a better remedy would be to tax the shit out of corporations and the wealthy who have evaded paying state taxes for decades (or to get the states to run roughshod over their corrupt privatized prison systems and start spending more money on education) in order to bring tuition back to 1960 levels, institute entrance standards based on performance and ability, and then tell kids, "if you work for it, you can go to college, and do well without a ton of debt."
But, here's Smith carping about violins and the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the oppressiveness of rationally good advice. No wonder average people start to feel like they've got prickly heat every time some demented wanker at The New York Post feels the need to ventilate.
Oh, yes there is: "Du, du, du, du, und du, auch."
ReplyDeleteKen Macleod, Intrusion it's a good SF novel dealing with nude-like policies, look it up sometime.
ReplyDeleteScreaming 'Hitlerhitlerhitler!' at anything you disagree with is the rightblogger equivalent of beige wallpaper. Aside it getting boring, it makes it much harder to actually talk about fascism in the context of modern politics without sounding like a lunatic. That said...are any of these morons aware that Hitler did not rise to power through subtle bureaucratic ministrations and the sinister overuse of existing agencies in the government so much as...leading populist revolts from the outside, railing against the impotent and illegitimate central government, claiming a popular mandate from a middle class that was fed up with the elitist rich and the parasitic underclass, and all that? I mean, I don't think the Tea Party is Hitler so much as a bunch of paranoid clowns with delusions of grandeur who couldn't depose a cat tower, let alone a government, and whose elected avatars stay in congress based mostly on gerrymandering and inertia, buuutt...if we're throwing around comparisons to Nazis, it might be helpful to remember who actually remembers them.
ReplyDeleteThing is, he's really depending on people being as horrified by change as he is. Not many people are. "The government is secretly modifying your behavior!' will get some attention, but explaining that it's mostly about light bulbs and fresh vegetables will get most people rolling their eyes. And why wouldn't they? Most people have lived through huge changes in computer technology, cars, electronics, health care, you name it. They understand that stuff changes and will continue to change. They may not like a lot of it, but most people don't get filled with an existential terror thinking about it. And most people aren't 'principled' enough see a big difference in whether the changes come from a government smartypants or a corporate smartypants. Facebook and Google have changed the way most people live their everyday lives more than the government in the last 20 years, but Smith wants us to believe that the biggest threat to your autonomy and independence is the government changing car emissions standards. Right.
ReplyDeleteWell, yes, life is one long game of Whack-A-Mole. Or, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," or something just as wearying, diabolical and frustrating.
ReplyDeleteAnd, no, it won't stop. 500 years from now, our progeny will think "Idiocracy" was a documentary.
This person was a senior at Yale as of 2007, but now she gets to tell you how to live your life. Sorry: encourage you to make choices that will make you happier...
ReplyDeleteHere is the central tenet of right-wing "libertarian" bloviation (I can't bring myself to call it "thought")- there is no concept of consent here, to make suggestions is to give orders, to cajole one to think about one's behavioral and consumption patterns is to give orders backed by vague threats of governmental violence.
Yup. Cass Sunstein is a bougie, self-impressed moron with terrible hair, but none of that necessitates a fucking tantrum on the order of Kyle Smith's yawp.
ReplyDeleteIt's weird because I could have sworn there was a point were the fact that having an ivy league degree entitled you to tell other people what to do was a thing both parties could agree on. I mean, that's the only plausible explanation for Ross Douthat's career, right?
ReplyDeleteI wonder how many people consciously recognize that a corporation "is secretly modifying your behavior!" every time you watch a commercial. They're trying to get you to buy something you probably don't need. That's pretty rad behavioral modification, if you ask me.
ReplyDeleteI do think there's a fair number of people that fear change, mostly because they see "the good ol' days" with a little vaseline smeared on the lens of the mind. There is no end of people who get the weepin' willies at the thought of losing their internal combustion engines. They don't understand that they'll be dead by the time the gas supply goes tits up, and their grandkids will be the first generation--as a generation--to realize that AC polyphase electric motors can generate maximum torque at 0 rpm, so stoplight racing is going to be even more, uh, exciting (providing we all don't die of thirst and heat exhaustion first).
And, not all change that seems to be nothing but good turns out to be all good. In twenty years, the internet has gone from that brand-new toy that was going to revolutionize and democratize society and the distribution of knowledge to, in some places, a commercial morass, and in others, Big Brother, for real.
Smith seems not to understand (because he's an idiot) that change is inevitable. It's more important to be smart enough to know how to best manage that change.
Really, there is no plausible--and rational--explanation for Ross Doubthat's career. I'm convinced that he and Bobo will be the subjects of an episode of the next remake of "Outer Limits."
ReplyDeleteDemon with a Sweaty Palm?
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, increasing college enrollment and academic performance are bad for conservatism.
ReplyDeleteIdeology with a Glass Jaw?
ReplyDeleteSemi-OT: I'm convinced, that if Kafka had gotten around to writing his comic novel, German would have a much better reputation. That and substracting the World Wars.
ReplyDeleteWink wink, nudge nudge, mum's the word.
ReplyDeleteI can't read your comment without mentally completing the word "Semiotic".
ReplyDeleteSmith wants us to believe that the biggest threat to your autonomy and independence is the government changing car emissions standards
ReplyDeleteAh, yes, the tyranny of saving money.
Aside it getting boring, it makes it much harder to actually talk about fascism in the context of modern politics without sounding like a lunatic.
ReplyDeleteFeature, not bug!
I begin to think they're not serious about winning.
ReplyDeleteWell, let's consider some different definitions of what "winning" means.
There is a large class of sociopathic super-rich Americans whose only priorities are low taxes for themselves, no regulation on corporations, and a "business-friendly" economy (low inflation, low wages).
The sociopathic super-rich employ puke funnels like Fox News and the New York Post to keep feeding the outrage addiction of the white males and others who form the base of the Republican Party.
The outrage addicts hold the primary votes which would defenestrate any Republican office-holder who might take any steps in the direction of any cooperation with any Democrat who proposes anything at all, including (most crucially) any Democrat who proposes anything at odds with sociopathic super-rich priorities.
Who's winning?
OT, but I figure I have to share this particular dispatch from 'Baggerstan.
ReplyDeleteAnd here's Kyle Smith with a degree from the very same ivy league university as the object of his complaints, basically saying "here's this Yale grad telling you how to live your life and how you should think. What the hell? That's MY job."
ReplyDeleteMullin's got the brains of a beanbag chair, but his constituents, judging from this leapin' screamer, are in need of round-the-clock supervision. "Nurse, Thorazine, stat!"
ReplyDeleteExperience has shown that the world is full of C students....
ReplyDelete"Say n' more."
ReplyDelete"Some young woman who used to play violin"...so where does that leave Ben Shapiro?
ReplyDeleteand FWIW: Obama's Executive Order 13,563 isn't a "mini-Constitution for the regulatory state." E.O. 13,563 was a nothingburger announcing the continuation of existing law and structures. The currently extent defining Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs powers is something called E.O. 12,866, which is in turn a tweaked version of E.O. 12,291 -- which was signed by a RINO named Ronald Reagan.
ReplyDeleteYou know who else was a "Senior at Yale" and then went on to "tell you how to live your life"... .
ReplyDeleteI bet his wife's a go-er.
ReplyDeleteTeach us about the New World Order, Sleeveless Man!
ReplyDelete~
Hitler?
ReplyDelete~
Damn! That is the finest unhinged wingnut rant I have ever seen in all my days!
ReplyDeleteIs that what the H stood for? Well, I never...
ReplyDeleteAnd doesn't even have a Tsar.
ReplyDeletewho couldn't depose a cat tower
ReplyDeleteBattle Log, Day 17
The siege goes well. Sundays are more difficult, as Chic-Fil-A is closed, and the men grumble more. Ammunition strong at 45,000 rounds. Only two casualties, so far: self-inflicted, accidental gun-shot, med-evac'd. We've managed to secure the lower bungalow and the swinging mousey. Expect opposition morale to crumble soon with the loss of swinging mousey.
Battle Log, Day 18
FALL BACK! FALL BACK! WHY WASN'T I INFORMED THAT THE ENEMY HAD TACTICAL RESERVES OF CATNIP!
Battle Log, Day 20
Unit restored to order. We will resume our assault at 1100 hours after the men discuss their guns some more.
That man is a debit to his race!
ReplyDeleteI heartily encourage the RWNJ community to ignore all this "healthy eating" discussion and instead counterattack "liberals" by making every meal a stack of Chick-Fil-A sandwiches with a tall glass of Paula Deen-endorsed butter. That'll show 'em!
ReplyDeleteOn a related note, when does the "we the government strongly encourage you to not douse yourself with gasoline and then play with matches" PSA campaign start? :)
Yeah. An Austerity Premier, trying to find ways to help big business take over more of the traditional roles of government? Who'da thunk it.
ReplyDeleteRemember when FDR, more or less admitting he was clueless about economics, saved the entire country from the massive depression caused by all the economic experts? I sure hated that!
ReplyDeleteNude-like policies? Is that government sanctioning of the wearing of flesh-colored clothing? That could go very wrong, depending on the attractiveness of the population.
ReplyDeleteThe cute egg timer dressed up to look like a chicken in the foreground makes it extra menacing.
ReplyDeleteSo the people who live their lives to scold other people for their sex lives, video game use, recreational drug use or failure to say "Merry Christmas" are upset at the thought of the government encouraging good behavior or enabling kids to go to college. Gotcha.
ReplyDeleteThey're like the guys who trumpet their intentions to leave their electric lights on all night long just to spite the environmentalists. Yeah! My $400 power bill! Suck on that, lib-tards!
ReplyDeleteToo bad she doesn't ice skate and play the piano - then they'd love her.
ReplyDeleteI have a conservative friend who, when I asked him why he was so damned exercised over toilets and light bulbs, darkly replied, "Don't you see? That's how it starts." I then asked him to give me one historical example of "it" starting with piddling efficiency standards set by a duly elected government, and I was met with the kind of stupefied silence that conservative bloggers are always saying they got the time they confronted a libtard at a dinner party with their unassailable logic and overwhelming command of the facts.
ReplyDeleteWell, if you were a right winger, and you became aware of what is, in essence, the White House Department of Subtlety, you'd be terrified of such an exotic tool, too.
ReplyDeleteThey're fine with teabagger Sean Duffy, whose only real credential is having been on The Real World, in Congress.
ReplyDeleteA nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat.
ReplyDeleteThat is so meta.
ReplyDeleteHow your friend will recount the conversation:
ReplyDelete"I have a liberal friend, who, when I mentioned that the government had no right to tell me what kind of light bulbs I should use, just said, 'I don't see what you're so worried about. When has any government every done anything that was bad for its people? They're there to look out for us because we don't know how to look after ourselves! It's too bad we can't just have one, big one-world government, then everybody could get along and there would be no more wars.' So I looked at her said, with a perfectly straight face, 'Maybe we could call it the Thousand-Year Reich, er, Reign.' And she said 'That sounds like a perfectly marvelous idea'."
Personally, I do appreciate more nutritional info, especially when I'm eating out, because I just started a low-carb/keto diet and HFCS really is in fucking everything. But then, I'm the kind of nutcase who isn't scared of a big-brain poindexter term like "randomized controlled trial"; being a member of the reality-based community, I think that they're usually a good thing, although of course they have their limits.
ReplyDeleteHey! HEY! No anti-Semiotic posts here!
ReplyDeleteNot to mention the tyranny of being able to breathe. O to live in the new China, where they glory in the freedom to cough, wheeze, and develop emphysema merely by crossing the street.
ReplyDeleteOh come on, vaginal wanding is also dandy-fine.
ReplyDeleteAnd the MSM would report it as "a heated exchange between two committed ideologues representing opposite extremes of the partisan spectrum, dug deeply into their respective positions and talking past each other, neither of whom displayed any interest in achieving bipartisan comity so that America can move forward.
ReplyDeleteOkay, I'm 1:13 in and he's still getting into character. Worst Method-based audition video EVAR.
ReplyDeleteWho knew Dolchstoß should actually be translated as "nudge in the back?" Beware the night of the long fingers, it's just a matter of time!
ReplyDeleteOh, yes, that hair. Sunstein's bulging side tufts occasionally approach the Bozo danger zone. An intervention may be in order.
ReplyDeleteOr we can sic Mitt Romney and his Scissor Brigade on him.
ReplyDeleteSorry, but I can't let this rant go by without my customary:
ReplyDelete"YES, well we're very sorry you feel that way, but we just wanted a simple block of flats."
It's very telling that the things they get the most het up about these days are the very things that, once upon a time, pretty much defined what "conservatism" is (or WAS, because it ain't now). For one thing, traditional conservatives were the types who would yell at the kids to shut off the lights when they weren't in the room, teach and/or lecture the kids about the importance of taking care of your belongings (or resources, as it were) so they will last as long and perform as well as possible...in short, they were cheapskates, though probably motivated as much by their dislike of waste (of anything) as much as by financial savvy. It was an outward manifestation of perhaps an excess of caution, and overall conservatives showed an affinity for the tried-and-true, and a resistance to rapid change.
ReplyDeleteFast forward to today, where conservatives frequently (and loudly) advocate the individual's right to be as wasteful as he wants (and can afford) to be, perhaps best exemplified by the Bush policy to offer business tax incentives to big, heavy, expensive gas-guzzlers to the exclusion of any other type of vehicle. To make it more affordable to be as wasteful as you wanna be.
As for the taking care of your stuff aspect of traditional conservatism, need I say more? These days they advocate for letting shit fall apart rather than spending anything to keep it working and fucking up the air and water as quickly as possible.
What we have now are not conservatives. Radicals, lunatics, and just plain morons, yes. But they're not conservative in any recognizable way.
I want to hoard incandescent lights for this comment just so I can leave them all on at once during that stupid liberal "Earth Hour."
ReplyDeleteRemember when FDR, more or less admitting he was clueless about economics...
ReplyDeleteNo, but I do remember FDR was elected president during the Great Depression and when he died in office the US was the most powerful, wealthiest nation of earth.
I guess we have different definitions of "clueless".
"... night of the long fingers."
ReplyDeleteFrom the maker of Magic Fingers. Bring lots of extra quarters!
"That man is a debit to his race!"
ReplyDeleteWell done! I am so appropriating that for my resume!
I often wonder what the cumulative effect of all that confidence-undermining advertising is on people - "you can't get laid without our deodorant!" - but constructing a long-term experiment would be tricky. The control group would have to be so radically sequestered to avoid advertising that it would be difficult to tell what effects on them were due to that and which to the lack of ads.
ReplyDeleteAnti-semioticism is simply a cover for Anti-Semanticism. Everybody knows that!
ReplyDelete" I mean, that's the only plausible explanation for Ross Douthat's career, right?
ReplyDelete"
Hell, Douthat's last name is an order.
Oh, Montag, next you'll be saying that taking a country to war has serious repurcussions on behavior, and a lot else besides.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate the additional info too - and aren't the libertarians forever puling that everything will be just fine without regulation as long as the populace is informed? Too bad the businesses won't cough up any information without being forced by law. Then, I guess it's on to "it was the consumer's fault for failing to ask whether the hamburgers had ground glass in them. In future they will simply choose to vote with their dollars and patronize another establishment," because big words mean you're smart.
ReplyDeleteAnd...is that article a joke? Comforting to see at least this: "We were unable to identify any randomised controlled trials of parachute intervention."
I have this weird hypothesis about fear ads. If you think fear ads are bad and everywhere now, you should seriously hie thee to YouTube and watch some ads from the 1950s. I think people who were making ads in the 1950s, having grown up through the Depression and WWII, had spent so much of their lives in existential terror, they simply didn't know how to cope unless they were frightened of *something*. (That also explains quite a lot of the Cold War, incidentally.)
ReplyDeleteI'm willing to bet that when kids who came of age around 9/11 start swinging weight in the ad industry, we're going to see the amount and intensity of fear-based ads go way, way up again.
"Who is this 'Bush' you refer to? If he ever was president, he surely was a liberal. But he wasn't president, otherwise I would have heard of him!"--All current Republicans and conservatives when presented with comments about the Bush administration.
ReplyDeleteI would like to eat fast food with this comment
ReplyDelete"I begin to think they're not serious about winning."
ReplyDeleteAnd stupid me, I used to read all the stuff at "Media Matters" and so many other sites, many of which needed no more than common sense to tear the rightards into little pieces and blow them away, and chuckle to myself: "Those wing-nuts have had it! Who can withstand this, being promptly shown up as fools and liars, on a daily basis?" That is what I used to say to myself.
"Well, let's consider some different definitions of what "winning" means."
ReplyDeleteExactly. From what I can see, they're doing pretty goddam well. They've gotten the zero-sum equaion on civil rights accepted as dogma. (Any right given to one person or group must have been taken from another)
I don't think ol' Lone Star could say "philistine pig ignorance."
ReplyDeleteVery interesting - I think part of the intensity of the fear in the early TV ads was just that they hadn't had time to learn some finesse (to use the kinder word; sneakiness is more like it.) But I bet you're right.
ReplyDeleteBut is a nude-like policy even remotely possible? I mean, define "nude". My policy would be slightly mottled part whitish, part eraser-colored pinkish, and I know it's not gonna work for everyone. Nude policy=can of worms. I'm not worm-colored, though. Most of me isn't anyway.
ReplyDeleteHe DID say "more or less..." I guess he meant more less and less more.
ReplyDeleteIt is absolutely a joke, but one with a serious point at the heart. (The more relevant example would be using a control group in a trial of a promising cancer drug.)
ReplyDeleteHe angrily calls people scum, just like Jesus did. He's really got a handle on things.
ReplyDeletebtw, the guy who went to jail for "principles" at the heart of this rant is Terry Lakin, the army doctor who refused to obey orders because he wasn't sure Obama was born in the US. I had to Google various spellings to find out -- I had forgotten that crackpot. But I guess he is remembered by other crackpots.
ReplyDeleteGosh, the angry praying at 2:58 really makes me laugh. In fear, but I like to laugh, so I take it where I can.
You raaanng?
ReplyDeleteAha, I see. I'd hope that Institutional Review Boards would fail to sign off on either.
ReplyDeleteAll he Tsars were killed by the Obamabolsheviks last year.
ReplyDeleteFirst they came for my sleeves...
ReplyDeleteObligatory.
ReplyDeleteI've been reading TPM. I dare any wing-nut to get tested for lead. I double-dare them.
ReplyDeleteMe too, except also, fuck you, too - and I mean that in the most constructive sense possible! ;-)
ReplyDeleteThis.
ReplyDeleteI have never really been conservative by any means--always questioning "why?" and "why-not?" too much for the folks on the right side of the aisle, and suspicious of tribal conditioning even before I understood such things--but I do remember when being conservative wasn't tantamount to being a hateful moron terrified of its own shadow.
I could at least respectfully disagree and still find enough in common to be on friendly terms most of the time.
Today's "conservatives" seem to be suffering untreated PTSD. I mean, one could conservatively argue that technology and society have advanced much too quickly for our little monkey brains to keep up and that we might consider putting on the brakes a bit, but god almighty these modern wingnuts are out of their minds. I really think a sizable portion of our population has been driven mad.
No joke.
Jesus fucking Christ, buy a sarcasm detector. Or pay attention to the regular contributors to this comment section and which way they lean. Or both.
ReplyDeleteRight back atcha - this is getting kinda meta, but my asshole crack was meant as an homage, not a criticism. Jeebus.
ReplyDeletewhat we have here, is a failure ... to communicate.
ReplyDeleteNow that I've lived in California I understand the idea of having too much labeling.
ReplyDeleteA law called Proposition 65 “intended to protect California citizens and the State's drinking water sources from chemicals known to cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm and to inform citizens about exposures to such chemicals”.
Which sounds like a great idea, until you go to California and realize that every single person, place and thing in the entire state of California contains chemicals known to cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm.
Seriously, when you get off an airplane in some airports, they hang that sign in the little tunnel that attaches to the plane. Are you just supposed to not get on the plane?
If you look online you'll find that some people have adopted signs patiently explaining that, yes, planks of wood contain chemicals known to cause cancer, but no, we didn't add anything to our wood, all wood has that. There's no such thing as cancer free wood. Please buy are wood.
That sign is so ubiquitous that you can't just go to the cancer free alternatives, because there aren't any. It just increases a sort of pointless feeling of anxiety.
All that having been said, Kyle Smith can go fuck himself.
So: he managed to write 4,000 words about libertarian paternalism without using the word "libertarian" even once or noting its grounding in traditional conservative thought. Interesting.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing these fuckers hate more than Obama doing ideologically liberal things is when he does ideologically conservative things.
My mistake. There are few instances in life in which "fuck you" means "loved your comment." Plus the pie filter reference threw me. I owe you a beer.
ReplyDeleteThat reminds me of a long-ago SportsCenter golf tournament report, when Keith Olbermann turned away from the teleprompter and looked right into the camera, saying* "I can't be the only one who's creeped out by the phrase 'German Masters'".
ReplyDelete(*From my memory. Not intended to be a verbatim transcript.)
The Tea Party isn't Hitler, they're the pile of shit that the Hitler-mushroom grows in.
ReplyDeleteI remember that ad showing a bunch of Chinese from the future laughing at how America foolishly brought on its own collapse by engaging in socialistic endeavors like spending money on infrastructure, and that's why world dominance is now in the hands of the.... um... Communists.
ReplyDeleteI am so opposed to the direction of this Administration that it burns me up when I need to tell the right wing wackos that they're wrong.
ReplyDeleteYes, he's bad. No, that doesn't mean that the email you got about Obama mandating Satanic child sodomy is true.
The thing is, as you point out in less colorful terms, warnings about forced Satanic child sodomy gets page views!
It's sad because it's true. The conversation will show the innate superiority of conservatism no matter how much ex post facto editing needs to be done.
ReplyDeleteI do not see, for example, the fracking industry coughing up (science metaphor) the info on the chemicals they're using and the composition of the produced wastewater, so the people in the path of the drills can make an informed decision. In fact, I see quite the opposite (thanks to a war criminal we all know).
ReplyDeleteThis is just a backhanded way of saying, "fuck you, take your chances. You shall not interfere with profit."
But it goes way further back!
ReplyDeleteE. B. White wrote an open letter to the Advertising Council or some such entity, which had promised to use its members' best efforts to Restore Confidence. Must have been in the 1930s, because that's when everyone wanted to do that. His reaction was like, *You* guys talk about restoring confidence? You're the ones who incessantly tell us we need to worry about how bad our breath smells, how we need to keep up with fashion, and on and on.
Same decade, other side of the pond: Lord Peter Wimsey takes a job in an advertising agency, giving his author, Dorothy L Sayers, a chance to speak some truths about the industry, in which she had worked in the previous decade. I don't know how it compares with Mad Men, which I've never seen, but it's plenty amusing and plenty irreverent. And full of the constant load of fear that the advertisers harp on.
And at that poinr you're pretty well back to the beginning of the ad industry as we know it.
"All over London the lights flickered in and out, calling on the public to save its body and purse: Sopo Saves Scrubbing - Nutrax for Nerves - Crunchlets are Crisper - Eat Piper Parritch - Drink Pompayne - One Whoosh and it's Clean - Oh, Boy! It's Tomboy Toffee - Nourish Nerves with Nutrax - Farley's Footwear Takes you Further - It Isn't Dear, it's Darling - Darling's For Houshold Appliances - Make All Safe with Sanfect - Whifflets Fascinate. The presses, thundering and growling, ground out the same appeals by the million: Ask Your Grocer - Ask Your Doctor - Ask The Man Who's Tried It - Mothers! Give It To Your Children - Housewives! Save Money - Husbands! Insure Your Lives -Women! Do You Realise? - Don't Say Soap, Say Sopo! Whatever you're doing, stop it and do something else! Whatever you're buying, pause and buy something different. Be hectored into health and prosperity! Never let up! Never go to sleep! Never be satisfied. If once you are satisfied, all our wheels will run down. Keep going - and if you can't, Try Nutrax for Nerves!
ReplyDeleteLord Peter Wimsey went home and slept."
The siege goes well. Sundays are more difficult, as Chic-Fil-A is
ReplyDeleteclosed, and the men grumble more. Ammunition strong at 45,000 rounds.
Only two casualties, so far: self-inflicted, accidental gun-shot,
med-evac'd. We've managed to secure the lower bungalow and the swinging
mousey. Expect opposition morale to crumble soon with the loss of
swinging mousey.
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Just heard the president had fried clams, fried oysters, and french fries on Maaarthas Vineyard. Oh oh. Where's Michelle? Where's Mayor Bloomburg. The usual "Do as I say...not as I do."
ReplyDeleteNo problem, trex. I suspect I must run in somewhat scruffier circles than more normal people. Meanwhile, I heartily take you up on your offer of a beer, and lemme buy you one, too. Plus pie. (Didn't know there was a filter through which pies could fit. . . OK, I'll stop now.)
ReplyDeleteIf Veronika Moser asks "Would the table like some appetizers?", it's time to run.
ReplyDelete"Hitler did not rise to power through subtle bureaucratic ministrations and the sinister overuse of existing agencies in the government so much as...leading populist revolts from the outside, railing against the impotent and illegitimate central government, claiming a popular mandate from a middle class that was fed up with the elitist rich and the parasitic underclass, and all that?"
ReplyDelete(Parenthetically, he also specifically achieved the chancellorship through the idiocy of reasonable conservatives who thought they could control and use him. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_von_Papen )
I am Not Laughing.
ReplyDeleteSo your substantive criticism of the president is that he's fat? This is like the folks who get mad that Al Gore isn't sitting in a cave with the lights out because of the environment. The point of healthy eating isn't to avoid all unhealthy foods at all times- it's to make sure that you're healthy. The point of environmentalism isn't to sit in a darkened cold cave- it's to make sure that your actions as a whole do not leave the planet more polluted than you found it. But hey, don't let me get in the way of your cheap shot at our president, it appears to be all you have which is really sad considering all the valid criticisms you might have explored instead.
ReplyDelete