Based on the first volume of a wildly popular young-adult trilogy, Divergent is set in America of the near-future, when all people are irrevocably slotted into one of five “factions” based on temperament and personality type. Those who refuse to go along with the program are marked as divergent—and marked for death! “What Makes You Different, Makes You Dangerous,” reads one of the story’s taglines.
Which pretty much sums up Rand Paul...Ha ha ha ha... wait, no, he's not kidding. Divergent is wow and Paul will be wow too, because 1.) "Paul is showing strongly in polls about the GOP presidential nomination in 2016," which is about as attractive a recommendation as "it's one of pedophiles' favorite child-lures," and 2.) The kids are waving the Gadsden Flag and don't know it yet:
Millennials are "unmoored from institutions," gasped Pew Research recently. There’s every reason to believe that large swaths of the country are ready to shake off the politics of exhaustion and move toward a future that is different from the past."A future that is different from the past" -- surely that must be the grim, Pay-or-Die dystopia Paul promises! And if that doesn't convince, hang on, Gillespie's talking in blockbuster tongues again:
“I don't want to be just one thing,” explains one of the protagonists in Divergent. “I can't be. I want to be brave, and I want to be selfless, intelligent, and honest and kind.” If anything explains Rand Paul’s rising profile, it’s precisely his ability to be more than just one thing—a social conservative, a civil libertarian, a budget cutter, a decentralizer, and more.If only Veronica Roth had thought of using "virtuously selfish" instead of that socialistic "selfless" -- well, who cares: any teen-angst drama will do for a libertarian mash-up in Gillespie's hands; last year he was trying this same shtick with The Hunger Games. Maybe he should collaborate with the guy from American Enterprise Institute who did "Greatest Conservative Rap Songs of All Time." Or maybe just pick some cool band -- how about Fucked Up? "he's the back without the bone/The king sits on a crooked throne..." That's gotta be Obama, right? Plus Damian Abraham was on Red Eye with Greg Gutfield. The future will be ours!
UPDATE. "'I want to be brave, and I want to be selfless, intelligent, and honest and kind'... Wow. Even in a random string of adjectives describing normal people, Rand Paul goes 0 for 5," says mortimer2000 in comments. The tigrismus version: "In a world where people are sorted based on a personality test, one man fails it."
Corrected version:
ReplyDelete"” If anything explains Rand Paul’s rising profile, it’s precisely his
ability to be more than just one thing— a [standard-issue right-wing jackass], a [standard-issue right-wing jackass], a [standard-issue right-wing jackass], a [standard-issue right-wing jackass], and [standard-issue right-wing jackass]."
Millennials are "unmoored from institutions," gasped Pew Research recently.
ReplyDeletePew Research "gasped"? I guess if corporations are people, Research organizations can be drama queens.
Rand Paul's going to be the nominee because young teens like sci-fi? Talk about grasping at straws.
ReplyDeleteAnd the "future is different from the past" - profound!
"it’s precisely his ability to be more than just one thing—a social conservative, a civil libertarian, a budget cutter, a decentralizer, and more."
ReplyDeleteIn today's party system three of these things are the same thing and one of these things is antithetical to one the others. I guess "divergent" means throwing a bone to the anti-abortion crowd to keep your "libertarian" ass from being primaried.
The Rand Revolution has already begun, libs. Who do you think is responsible for the pro-marijuana legalization messages blooming on conservative Facebook pages across our nation? Armed with wedge issues like these, the GOP, led by the rad Rand, will easily sweep up the votes of America's credulous and drug-addled youth! Quail before the power of Rand, smug, out-of-touch liberal fossils!
ReplyDeleteReminds me of the line from The Blues Brothers : "We play both kinds of music--country and western."
ReplyDeleteActually, Rand Paul might be a fun addition to a Divergent-type story: "In a world where people are sorted based on a personality test, one man fails it."
ReplyDeleteThe Wizard of Oz pretty much sums up Rand Paul. He's the man behind the curtain of wealthy men, pulling levers and blowing smoke.
ReplyDeleteOh, FFS. Divergent is "wildly popular" because this time of year is the Dead Zone for movies--post-Oscars, pre-pre-summer movie season (the official beginning of the pre-summer movie season is exactly one week from now, when the new Captain America movie comes out, featuring, fuck me, Robert Redford)--and it will be a little while before the next Hunger Games movie comes out, since Jennifer Lawrence has weightier work to do, such as the next X-Men movie (also with the dystopian future). It did do very decent box office, but whether or not the franchise has real legs remains to be seen, and at any rate it's more than ludicrous for a 50-year-old blogger to compare a 51-year-old senator to teen rebels by any measure, even if both Gillespie and Paul are emotionally still in their tweens.
ReplyDeletePossible, but I'm not sure "You'd have to be high off your ass to vote for me!" is such a great campaign slogan.
ReplyDelete"I want to be brave, and I want to be selfless, intelligent, and honest and kind.” If anything explains Rand Paul’s rising profile, it’s precisely his ability to be more than just one thing
ReplyDeleteYes, just not any of those things.
It's like he doesn't know the definition of dystopian...
ReplyDeleteSounds like a winner; between the weed and Gillespie's leather jacket, I don't see a downside. All they need to do is get a few million stoners off the couch, and utterly obscure Paul's actual record, and it's White House here we come!
ReplyDelete"I want to be brave, and I want to be selfless, intelligent, and honest and kind."
ReplyDeleteWow. Even in a random string of adjectives describing normal people, Rand Paul bats 0 for 5.
The more things change, the more things have to listen to rightwing boilerplate awkwardly garbed in RNC-approved youth appeal.
ReplyDeleteThere are so many popular "dystopian future" books, films and TV shows, you can pretty much pick any one of them to make some tenuous link to whatever political boiler-plate assertion ("Rand Paul will give us Republicans our turn, you libs!") you want.
ReplyDelete"Dude, have you ever looked at a ballot slip? I mean really looked at it?"
ReplyDelete"Just put it in the box, if you wouldn't mind. There are people waiting."
I would like to treat this comment like a Rocky Horror Theme night and throw stuff at it, in admiration and hommage.
ReplyDeleteMaybe he thinks the point of a Rand Paul's candidacy is to bring about a dystopia? If so I kind of agree.
ReplyDeleteAnd if there's anything you can count on in YA literature and Libertarian talk it's stilted dialog.
ReplyDeleteThere’s every reason to believe that large swaths of the country are
ReplyDeleteready to shake off the politics of exhaustion and move toward a future
that is different from the past.
... and they'll express this by lining up to join the pro-"weed (except for black people) and privacy (except for Muslims)" party which is essentially the rump wing of the party that's defiantly stuck in 1960?
People who throw around terms like RINO and drum the insufficiently fervent from the movement should not use the tag line "what makes you different makes you dangerous ".
ReplyDeleteNever mind about the gaspiness — this is an Ass Clown Statement overall. Millennials weren't born unmoored from institutions and they didn't "just turn out to be" unmoored from institutions (the way Topsy just grew); what happened (instead) is that they came of age at the exact historical moment at which great swathes of the American public were being palpably, bodily, visibly thrown out of the institutions they had grown up with. The signature Millennial experience is that of being evicted; that's what Millennials know about life; that's their conception of the way the world works.
ReplyDeleteI can see where the likes of Rand Paul and Gillespie might want to take advantage of that — it's the equivalent of buying up a bunch of mortgages and throwing a bunch of poor sons-of-guns out into the street, then approaching them with a pity-party expression on your face and then ushering them into a dump where there's lots of discarded lumber and other crap and letting them know that you've made some kind of a provision for them after all. "Here's everything you need," GillesPaul will say, "and more important, understand that it is all you'll get. Build your houses out of these materials and erect them on this ground. That's the way to prove your ingenuity, that you've got some good American can-do spirit, that you're not whiners or complainers, and that the bloody-footed soldiers at Valley Forge didn't get their butts shot off in vain."
(Then, of course, you charge your marks for the building materials and the use of the site. That's the punch line."
Rand Paul a decentralizer? Is there a body of Paul sponsored antitrust legislation that I've missed?
ReplyDeleteIt's usually the last place you left it.
ReplyDeleteThat thing on the top of his head would be named dictator.
ReplyDeletemove toward a future that is different from the past.
ReplyDeleteUnless you're living in the ending of an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, this would seem to be a fairly likely outcome regardless.
a social conservative, a civil libertarian
One of these things was necessary for him to get elected senator from Kentucky, and is also the only way he'd have a chance in the GOP presidential primaries. And Rand knows it, which is why he doesn't meet with civil libertarian groups on his trips to Iowa, but licks authoritarian theocrat asses instead.
a decentralizer
Yeah, God damn the day the Establishment Clause was federalized. And don't get him started again about all that intrusive "federal civil rights legislation," or "full faith and credit for same-sex marriage" stuff. Wait, is that a federal Personhood for Zygotes bill he's sponsoring? ... Hey, look over there, it's Jennifer Lawrence!
If you meet The Aqua Buddha on the road, grill him.
ReplyDelete"Senator Rand, when did you stop kidnapping college women?"
That's exactly what I was thinking.
ReplyDeleteSomehow I'm reminded of the blind men and the elephant.
ReplyDeleteSusan why is your avatar a cookie? Isn't there some great E. Lear drawing that would suit you better?
ReplyDeleteI laughed until I thought about how much Thorazine they'd have to pump into the poor guy who touched his 'hair'.
ReplyDelete"“I don't want to be just one thing,” explains one of the protagonists in Divergent. “I can't be."
ReplyDeleteAnnnnnd cue the GOP misogyny / homophobia / transphobia / non-Christian-phobia / women-working-outside-the-home-phobia / brown-people-thinking-they-are-people-phobia Wurlitzer. Yep, they sure do love them some people who color outside the lines... ;)
Poor Nick thinks that a series of YA books will make "the kids" fall in love with Rand Paul? He's setting himself up for a heartbreak- not even the wild popularity of Twilight" could get young people to vote for a sparkly Mormon vampire.
ReplyDeleteThey just hate people who line outside the color.
ReplyDeleteLike cronyist hypocrites like eddie care about kids? He supports DiBlasio who is trying to destroy opportunities for minority children to attain better education. He'd rather suck up to big government. He does NOT have your best interests at heart. Stop falling for this sad, small, spiteful little con man.
ReplyDeletehttp://nypost.com/2013/09/24/parents-to-rally-against-de-blasios-charter-
school-attacks/
Hey, keep posting completely irrelevant comments. You're totally going to win us over.
ReplyDeleteFirst, charter schools aren't "better education". They game their numbers and ruthlessly trim their rosters to keep churning out high test scores.
ReplyDeleteSecond, who is eddie?
Sorry, numb nuts, charter co-location is a theft from the public school system to line the pockets of charter holders. You'll have to do better if you want to troll here.
ReplyDeleteIsn't "decentralize" the new market-tested euphemism for "privatize"?
ReplyDeleteI think he means the zombie on the Iron Maiden album covers.
ReplyDelete"There’s every reason to believe that large swaths of the country are
ReplyDeleteready to shake off the politics of exhaustion and move toward a future
that is different from the past."
And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future.
I didn't update my Newspeak dictionary.
ReplyDeleteI'm not even sure what "wildly popular" means in terms of YA dystopian novel series anymore. There's such a glut of the damn things that many agents and publishers are turning them away on principle alone. Sounds more like a case of Hollywood dualing rather than any sort of grand statement from the youngs.
ReplyDeleteYes, I realize that I'm missing the point. Given that Gillespie's point is "recent movie means that we're totally going to own the future," I thought maybe we should introduce a better point.
Hello again, Rob! Dropped the traditional reference to jokes as "non-sequiturs," I see. Did someone explain the gags to you?
ReplyDeleteI don't care if it is the smart one in the partnership, a pot-scrubber can't be made dictator!
ReplyDeleteOh, he's totally for decentralizing medical certification boards!
ReplyDeleteMinority kids like his kids? And when did you give a fuck about minority kids? And charging rent to a charter school seems fair. And you are still an idiot.
ReplyDeleteAlso, it's not a con if someone actually states his preferences and explains why he feels that way.
Well, there's every reason to believe so, anyway.
ReplyDeleteMore like "the blind men and the standard issue righ-wing jackass" - they all agree!
ReplyDeleteNo, it means, "leave it to the states, because we're not in control at the federal level."
ReplyDeletenot their teens, their terrible twos.
ReplyDelete"(Work of fiction) is a chilling allegory for (political situation), because (hero) is (good qualities) just like (GOP politician), while (villain) is (bad qualities), like (Obama). And don't think young voters aren't paying attention."
ReplyDeleteDone. Gimme Gillespie's job, Reason.
You don't have to be, but it helps.
ReplyDelete"Most people don't know this, but we have a sixth sector, named Duplicitous. I think you'll fit right in."
ReplyDeleteAnd, in the end, they don't even get the high test scores. Charter schools do no better than public schools, overall. And many of them simply pack up shop and close when they are called to account.
ReplyDeleteAlso? DiBlasio? Not a small man. Just FYI.
ReplyDeleteMaybe if there had been some actual sparkle.
ReplyDeletePrior to joining Reason, Gillespie worked at a number of small trade
ReplyDeletemagazines and other journalistic outlets. He worked for several years at
Teen Machine magazine, where he interviewed celebrities and ghost-wrote an advice column for actress Alyssa Milano.
This is all fun and games and everything but what if at long last Mr. Gillespie decides to Go Galt? Who then who will speak for Alyssa Milano?
These are the deep imponderables you statists just refuse to address.
Reminds me more of Groucho. "Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others."
ReplyDeleteAnd charging rent to a charter school seems fair.
ReplyDeletePositively market-based and anti-moocher, in fact. Let them compete without additional government susbsidies, if they want to demonstrate their superiority to the big government version.
If anything explains Rand Paul’s rising profile, it’s precisely his
ReplyDeleteability to be more than just one thing—a social conservative, a civil
libertarian
He's a floor wax, and a dessert topping caustic acid that destroys your floor.
The vampirism was real enough.
ReplyDeleteOh, hello to you, too, Mr. roso. May I call you "ed"?
ReplyDelete(That's the only thing I can think of to explain "eddie" that is even remotely complimentary to Rob's literacy skills.)
If anything explains Rand Paul’s rising profile, it’s precisely his
ReplyDeleteability to be more than just one thing—a social conservative, a civil
libertarian, a budget cutter, a decentralizer, and more.
The level of dishonesty involved in presenting yourself as an entirely different person depending on your audience, with diametrically opposite ideals and policies, is so new to politics. It's bound to be a winner, at least among the Otherkin / multiple-personality demographic.
Ah, isn't it nice when a windbag dressed up as a "pundit" lets their fatal attraction for a pol reach such, er, sploogy proportions? I mean, this little
ReplyDeletemash note gives even Starburst Lowry and his Palin Pullin’ a stroke for the
money.
(By the way, Mr. Gulpsie, the official movie sponsor for the 2016 GOP Primary is Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.)
I like that it was the fucking pull quote, fercrissakes. Not only fine writin', but stellar desigin' 'en editin', too!
ReplyDeleteWho then who will speak for Alyssa Milano?
ReplyDeleteThe Major League Baseball Players Association, of course.
a future that is different from the past.
ReplyDeleteThe choices are endless! There's the free market dystopia where caveat emptor is branded on our forearms at birth. There's post-nuclear hellscape, there the soylent green option, the Parable of the Sower futre (where potable water is to die for) or some other sort of blighted environment future. Or maybe we could have Road Warrior where you have to maintain your own road!
Who wouldn't want that?
What about a patch of pubic hair?
ReplyDeleteThere's the free market dystopia where caveat emptor is branded on our forearms at birth.
ReplyDeleteI hear tattoos are all the rage with kids these days.
I would bet that there is at least one HR department in the Koch empire that is using Myers-Briggs or some such device to "sort" people.
ReplyDeleteMaking a patch of pubic hair into a dictator sounds downright un-Amerkin to me.
ReplyDelete"There's thousands of different kinds of hells. You got your fire hell, your ice hell, your...ice hell, uh...upside down hell..."
ReplyDeleteGiven our experiences here in MA with Romney, who got himself elected governor as a "Fiscal Conservative/Social Moderate" and then jettisoned the "Social Moderate" thing five minutes after taking the oath of office, there is no current "Libertarian" that I would trust as far as I could throw him, including tiny little Rand who could star in a dwarf bowling league. And I do apologize for the overuse of scare quotes, but it's becoming impossible to describe conservative "ideas" or "principles" without them.
ReplyDeleteI thought "Mer-kin" was the PC way of referring to our amphibious batrachian colleagues from Innsmouth.
ReplyDeleteyou charge your marks
ReplyDeleteThat, detective, is the right question.
Heh, a friend uses the cookie so using it reminds me of her.
ReplyDeleteBut I have been thinking of changing it---.
Speaking of meatballs, after watching some of the Chris Christie's performance in today's press conference and considering that his hand picked investigative team cleared him of wrongdoing, I'd have to say that, unless David Wildstein or Bridget Kelly come up with something sensational, the Christie Train is back on the tracks.
ReplyDeleteMake a patch of pubic hair into a pot scrubber and you can call it "upcycling" and sell it upper-middle-class white assholes like me for a mint.
ReplyDeleteAll references to Futurama get automatic up votes.
ReplyDeleteI know. It's really funny, It's like going "I listen to all kinds of stuff--you should see my record collection. I've got country, I've got western and country-western."
ReplyDeleteI think the thing that bugs me most about this is that there is just NOT ONE SHRED OF MEAT here. It's just a bunch of inanities strung together. It's bunch of words that aren't actually functioning together to really communicate what the author wants to say, which is, really "Young people are gettable; we can sell them on conservative causes."
ReplyDelete"Unmoored from institutions" doesn't really mean ANYTHING. And a "future that's different from the past?" Well, I have to take the Nick Gillespie route here because...I have no words... *shakes head*
Charter schools are grifts. And a plot to bust unions.
ReplyDeleteAnyone who says otherwise is selling something.
It ain't the investigation that matters. There's a fed investigation and the legislature's. Don't tear up your ticket yet.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that Christie just threw Kelly under the bus and slut-shamed her is going to make a change in her motivation.
There is a moment where the future and the past meet. And that moment is the present. If we want a better future we have got to have a good present, and the best hope for a good present is a good past. Only few men have the hair that sets them apart, unmoors them from the bad institutions past. A past filled with moors. This is good hair, if different hair. it is the hair the youngs will have once they stop having it on their face. The end.
ReplyDelete-Nick Gillespie.
Cronyist? That's some mighty fine wordsmithing there.
ReplyDelete"large swaths of the country" are inhabited by tumbleweeds, windmills and fracking rigs. He can get back to us, when he can say "a majority of the electorate".
ReplyDeleteWow. Another "wildly popular" wingnut book I have never heard of.
ReplyDeleteWhy give them a nice healthy dump, full of old cars & refrigerators (just waiting to me mined one day) and bubbling with nice, useful methane.... allow the dispossessed to live in toxic waste sites, like the coal-ash mountains the Kocks own.
ReplyDeleteI have to say, I don't know any teens who'd make that comment either. Mostly its "I wanna new iPad".
ReplyDeleteI don't know how I'd manage without "scare quotes" and elipsis... and then there's italics and bolding. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a kid in the 60s the SciFi dystopian books all had "muties": mutants born different because of radiation, and usually possessing interesting powers, teleportation, mind reading, giant heads with giant brains that ruled the world... when really young (late 50s early 60s) I loved Princess books. The more things change the more they change.
ReplyDeleteIf you don't give them a dump, they might well take a dump.
ReplyDeleteEddie Munster, maybe? Nah, he's too busy trying to starve yer gramma.
ReplyDeleteIt's not actually a wingnut book in any serious way, just a teenage-angst book. Wingnuts do behave like angsty teenagers a lot of the time, but if there was an actual political message in Divergent beyond a general "yeah, fight the power, man!" I missed it completely.
ReplyDelete"Oh, we got both kinds of music here - country AND western!"
ReplyDeleteGod bless The Blues Brothers
Yeah, that as my first thought too. "Don't all those things usually come together?"
ReplyDeleteI failed a Rorschach test once. No joke. Came up blank on every picture.
ReplyDeleteI disagree. I think the best part of the whole Bridgegate scandal is that it's shone a very bright light on Christie's methods and machinations, and they ain't pretty under any light.
ReplyDeleteI hope he does throw his hat in the ring, however. The more meatballs the better, and 2016 needs lots of meatballs to surpass the glorious free entertainment that was the 2012 GOP primary.
Today In Dog Whistling: The UnMoors vs. The Moors
ReplyDeletehttp://s27.postimg.org/mkf97rkkz/moors_19674_lg.gif
His rising profile is explained by his lengthening nose.
ReplyDeleteMs. Milano's Wikipedia page claims she wrote it herself.
ReplyDeleteIf Darrell Issa wasn't busy being the Foursquare mayor of Benghazi, he could investigate stuff like this and prove Gillespie doesn't lie all the time.
Like a dust devil in the sand trap of a country club golf course. And the gophers tremble!
ReplyDeleteUnless a state legalizes gay marriage. Then it's time for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
ReplyDeleteMy friend, we are all interested in the future, for that is
ReplyDeletewhere you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives.
Possible, but I'm not sure "You'd have to be high off your ass to vote for me!" is such a great campaign slogan.
ReplyDeleteSpeak for yourself. I am entranced.
I like the dude at the bottom of the pile: "Hey, guys, can you take it somewhere else? I'm looking for my contact lens here!"
ReplyDeleteAnother GOP outreach project begins!
ReplyDeleteAnd don't get him started again about all that intrusive "federal civil rights legislation,"
ReplyDeleteSeriously, please don't. He still has hurt feelings about the time Rachel Maddow did.
"Unmoored from institutions" doesn't really mean ANYTHING.
ReplyDeleteThe Pew Research people are responsible for that gaseous emanation, though, you can't blame Gillespie except for repeating it.
The Pew Research people also announced that young people are less inclined than older generations to trust anyone over 30. Truly an unprecedented new social development.
I don't think Rand Paul has particularly good hair. He looks like he's wearing William Shatner's Wrath of Khan toupee.
ReplyDeleteThe Pew Research people are responsible for that gaseous emanation, though, you can't blame Gillespie except for repeating it.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair to Pew, they had to come up with at least one question that hadn't been asked in the previous 12,781 "brave new world of the Millenials" polls. What are they supposed to do, quit polling people based on vaguely-defined media stereotypes? If they do that, what are this nation's hack columnists supposed to write about? The issues?
Looks like he's climbing out of a man-hole while another guy is trying to get in.
ReplyDeleteIs "cronyist" even a word?
ReplyDeleteIYKWIMAITYD.
ReplyDeleteI like the future; I'm in it. It's smaller, but cleaner.
ReplyDeleteSing, Bridget, sing!
ReplyDeleteThe future is fun! The future is fair! They already have won! They already be there!
ReplyDeleteIf you go to the Google, it gets used by right-schmibertarians to criticize government doing ... well, basically anything, even if it's not clear who the actual cronies are (besides them, the perpetually-subsidized spoiled little shits). So it's apparently not a real word in the OED sense, but Hayeksters have convinced themselves that it exists anyway. Kinda like every other thing they believe.
ReplyDeleteHere is a nickel for writing the GillespieApp for us.
ReplyDeleteThanks soooo much, gotta go,
Reason
Yeah, Freddoso, why do you hate the kids so much?
ReplyDeleteWho has two thumbs and needs to work on her reading comprehension? This gal!
ReplyDeleteUmm, now zero for three in just the last few days.
ReplyDeleteGeez, I hope, for your sake, that's not your A-game.
Fresh hell, hell on wheels, hell bent for leather, ...
ReplyDelete..hell and spam; hell, eggs and spam; hell, spam, sausage, eggs and spam; hell, bacon, hell, sausage and spam; hell, hell, spam and hell....
ReplyDeleteMascot...
ReplyDeleteIs Reason going down the tubes, despite all that free money the Kochs and all the usual suspects have been giving them? I mean, shit, Gillespie is way, way over the top here, practically begging Paul to drop trou and let him kiss his ass. This is unadulterated fan-boy stuff--is he angling for a job on Paul's as-yet unformed campaign? Is he trying to wedge himself in the door first?
ReplyDeleteIf he is, why? You'd think that someone working for a mag called Reason would not be in such a hurry to hitch his wagon to a leaky submarine like Paul. Sure, there's intermittent buzz when Paul says something vaguely imitative of sanity, but, as Charlie Pierce reminds us regularly, the three-minute rule is still in effect. Over the course of the primary season, Paul will have many, many opportunities to prove that he is his father's son, and will wind up, at best, seventh in a field of ten, behind Santorum, Gingrich and whatever looney replaces Bachmann in the lineup.
Now, I suppose I could understand if Gillespie were honest about his intentions, and said, in effect, "I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part," but that's not what he's doing. Hype is like myth-making--it's got to have some tiny kernel of truth at its heart for it to be believable, and this liturgical regurgitation is absent any such element. Millennials are not going to think he's the greatest thing since sliced bread. They are going to think, "Paul? He's kind of a spaz."
"I don't care if he's in toy-poodles-on-parade hell."
ReplyDeleteGillespie has obviously been to one of those salesmen's seminars where they make you practice improvising some bridge between what the customer has just said about himself and what you're selling.
ReplyDelete"Tell me something about yourself, Mr. Mark."
"Well, I'm a volunteer at the local hospital..."
"Ah, I can see you're a man who, who relishes, ummm making people's lives easier! Well, don't you think it would make your wife's life easier if she had a state-of-the-art cheese grater..."
And anything disliked by too many social conservatives isn't really a liberty, anyway; it's just "license," which is the enemy of true liberty. This is a twist so easy to perform that even Louie Gohmert can stick the landing every time.
ReplyDeleteHaving the libertarian street cred to get one hundred percent of the Ron Paul voters gets you enough votes to win zero GOP primaries. Having to share those kook balls with Ted Cruz? That puts you in T-Paw territory.
ReplyDeleteLet me try: 1-Casablanca 2-America today 3-Rick 4-a guy who didn't want to get involved in politics, but things got so bad he had to take a stand
ReplyDeleteIf there is one thing of which we may be certain, it is that the future will be different from the past. Because past futures have always been different from past pasts.
ReplyDeleteWait a minute...
And thinking "so now one of the horses is gonna drop a load on me and make my fucking day complete"...
ReplyDeleteWatch out, Roy; Rob will be picketing every Edroso 2016 campaign event, pleading with the voters to see through your con.
ReplyDeleteThe past is prologue. The present is preface. The future is introduction. The...I'll come in again.
ReplyDeleteThere's also the Lippidleggin' future, which has the Libertarian stamp of approval, having been invented by one. (F Paul Wilson, of the repairman jack series, a guilty pleasure of mine)
ReplyDeleteLooks like he often twitches on the Twitchy.
ReplyDeleteHarry Potter and the Awesome American Transfer Student (fan fiction); Mary Sue, the awesome American transfer student; absolutely wonderful and perfect and Harry [America] falls in love with her right away; Rand Paul; Ginny Weasley; the conniving bitch who tries to take Harry away from Mary by offering him an Obamaphone.
ReplyDeleteI want to carry this comment, gently, to the triage center to bandage its poor and bloody feet and give it a good hot meal and a shot of good whiskey (or two), unlike the beans and god-knows-what it had been subsisting on during that terrible winter at Valley Forge. I'm sure General Washington would approve.
ReplyDeleteIt's no stretch to say that between his supposed Libertarianism and Christianity, he's lying through his teeth about at least one of 'em, and neither group seems smart enough to get it..
ReplyDelete"Looks like a fucking inkblot. So what's your point?"
ReplyDeleteSeriously, what does "and more" really mean? He secretly plays third base for the Kansas City Royals?
ReplyDeleteHey, his name is "Paul", just like one of the Beatles. Get with it, man.
ReplyDelete"I'm so fucked up I think I'll vote for Rand Paul!" Could happen, you know.
ReplyDelete"Kids" just fuckin' love the irony & liberty of a toupee.
ReplyDeleteOh, hairpiece. Sorry.
Wow, "I hope I die before I get old." Damn, too late.
ReplyDelete"Right now I don't give a shit which side I'm on, just keep those fucking horses off of me!"
ReplyDelete"Scrabble dictionary says no."
ReplyDeleteThe pluperfect is index.
ReplyDeleteThe aorist is ... come to think of it, I have no idea. Possibly a heart condition.
ReplyDeleteYou know, of all the objects we encounter on a daily basis, airplanes might be the ones for which this statement is least true.
ReplyDeleteThings went all to hell after they gave the swaths the right to vote.
ReplyDeleteA fair for all and no fair to anybody! We are all Bozos on this bus....
ReplyDeleteWell, it IS where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives.
ReplyDeleteWhoa, shoulda read the whole thread before making that exact same joke.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, you were focused on the future, and no one had made any clever comments there yet.
ReplyDeleteThe city of gold and lead.
ReplyDelete"I want to give you my hairpiece."
ReplyDelete--The Corsican Brothers
But wasn't tomorrow wonderful?
ReplyDeleteYeah, I can see that...
ReplyDeleteI think you've hit on something about politics in general and reactionary politics in particular. Its like they are listening very, very, hard to what the "customer/voter" is saying and then repurposing it using a find/replace algorithm.
ReplyDeleteSo: you say you want [freedom], we can offer you [freedom lite] you say you want [religious liberty?] we can offer you [corporate religious liberty] you way you want [bodily autonomy for women?] we can offer you [bodily autonomy for zygotes and embryos]. You say you want [tolerance] we can demand you [tolerate our intolerance.]
Think of it as reusing a stock joke. Ed Wood would have approved.
ReplyDeleteIs that from Big Trouble in Little China, moominpappa? There's a dirty little pleasure of a movie.
ReplyDeleteIsn't this more like the moment before closing time when the smart PUA makes his move, lowers his standards, and starts hittin' on the C and D level women to make sure he gets taken home tonight. Its a short term strategy but no other woman is at the bar right now and tomorrow will be a new day. I think Gillespie is hoping Rand will bang him (hire him) for the period at least running upto the primaries and then if/when he loses Gillespie will jump ship as a "seasoned" campaigner and get hired by whoever wins. You notice he's careful not to diss anyone else who will be in the primary. He's marketing Paul as the guy who can get the kiddie vote but he's really marketing himself to the money guys as the person who can explain the kiddie vote.
ReplyDeleteWell, at least there's still an opportunity to age gracelessly. I'm working that angle.
ReplyDeleteWell, he doesn't *have* to, going by the quality of past trolls. But it'd be appreciated.
ReplyDeleteI think they're co-opting "choice" for that, at least with the schools. Since the word "voucher" crashed and burned.
ReplyDeleteEspecially the swarthy swaths.
ReplyDeleteThat settles it then. It's not even a bullshit Scrabble word.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember reading about Nicholas Gillespie in Look.
ReplyDeleteAt closing time, it already *is* tomorrow...
ReplyDeleteCall Pup Tentacle, he's been there...
ReplyDeleteA trip to the fair, but nobody was there...
ReplyDeleteRandville
ReplyDelete"I want to be brave, and I want to be selfless, intelligent, and honest and kind.”
ReplyDeleteAdd thrifty, clean, reverent, and respectful and you have a Boy Scout. Or a Girl Scout.
Oh wait--those are institutions.
I want to be sedated.
ReplyDeleteYou mean the inkblots of the naked wom...,er, ah, forget I said anything.
ReplyDeleteAs it's told, one of astronaut Pete Conrad's patented 'gotcha!' moments came during the endless psych tests when he was handed a blank sheet in the middle of a Rorschach sequence: "But this is upside down."
ReplyDeleteNo wonder Alyssa's anal advice was so straightforward.
ReplyDeleteFind the sizzle to go with the steak the customer allegedly desires.
ReplyDelete" - a social conservative, a civil libertarian..."
ReplyDeleteNone of these things is just like the other.
One of the first SF stories I remember reading was from one of the anthologies that Anthony Boucher or Groff Conklin put together and it was about a post-nuclear future where the mutant was condemned by the religion and the people of the time.
ReplyDelete"You're the onewho keeps showing me the dirty pictures!
ReplyDeleteI can't see Gillespie working on a campaign. At the end of a campaign you're graded on your work. The voters will decide if you did your job well, and barring Supreme Court intervention, success or failure is up to you.
ReplyDeleteDo you think he'd leave a cushy Koch financed job where he doesn't have to produce anything and will never be judged on the quality of his work? Campaigns are real work. Think tanks are not.
It would be easy to dismiss all the popular dystopian fiction as just so much bandwagon-jumping, but like other trends in fiction, I suspect that the reason it's had so much popularity over the past 5 years is that it reflects the fears of the people who consume it. Just as Japanese monsters reflected a society trying to come to grips with nuclear horror, just as movies like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and other unfriendly alien movies reflected American xenophobia in the 50's. If dystopian fiction has currency with American youth, it's because of their fear - sadly all too well-founded - of their prospects these days.
ReplyDeleteEh, you're fine as long as you don't fail a Turing test.
ReplyDeleteAngel, actually. But close enough(?).
ReplyDeleteAt the end of a campaign you're graded on your work.
ReplyDeleteSAMUEL JOHNSON: I refute it thus [Kicks Mark Penn in the head].
It doesn't really matter how any of the investigations turn out, IMO. Politicians' handmaidens don't do things that they know their boss would not approve, whether they tell the boss what they're doing before they do it or not. Bridgegate happened because in Camp Christie, fucking up someone's day because they didn't do exactly what you wanted is SOP. As fucked up as the country is, I think the majority still wouldn't favor a mafia enforcer as their leader.
ReplyDeleteThe wrath of con.
ReplyDeleteThe future perfect will not happen. the past perfect has been shown to be wrong
ReplyDeleteWhat makes you think I am fine as long as me don't fail a Turing test?
ReplyDeleteThe subjunctive is fan fiction.
ReplyDeleteI shouted out, "Free the Expo '67"
ReplyDeleteTill they stepped on my hair, and they told me I was fat
Now I'm very big, I'm a big important man
And the only thing that's different is underneath my hat
Purple toupee is here to stay
after the hair has gone away
It's already yesterday.
ReplyDeletehttp://youtu.be/OSKO_u-MsgQ
"... young people are less inclined than older generations to trust anyone over 30."
ReplyDeleteYeah, well, the feeling is mutual.
With its appendix removed...
ReplyDeleteIt's not how you answer internet questions with questions that matters; it's what you do when they shove Chinese writing under the door.
ReplyDelete