Don't use "orphanage" in a headline. It reminds people of why they hate you. (See also "widows.") Geraghty goes on:
We may help out these kids because we’re kind-hearted souls...Sorry, had something caught in my windpipe.
...some will say it’s the Christian thing to do.Sorry, same thing. Okay:
...But we’re not obligated to do this. This isn’t our responsibility and this isn’t our fault. The parents of those kids are the ones who should be taking care of them – feeding them, clothing them, sheltering them and educating them. And I don’t think it’s cold-hearted to ask whether our immediate effort to take care of these kids – because they so desperately need care – is setting us up to be their long-term caretaker.Geraghty supported the idea that we should devote $2 trillion and thousands of lives to invading and occupying Iraq to bring them freedom. But that was different, of course: We got to kill a bunch of them, which made it butch. Also we didn't have to hang around with them. Huddled masses yearning to breathe free are the worst!
Sometimes I wonder what these people think America is all about, but it's becoming clearer every day that their vision resembles an endless loop of Three Stooges shorts with Sousa marches playing in the background.
Yo, Geraghty, if you were gonna try to frame this thing as just you dudes being coldly rational bean counters (which, still of course, dumb), the time to do that was before there were a bunch of dudes down on the border waving rifles and screaming about Messicans.
ReplyDeleteYa done missed your shot.
Also, too: Shorter Geraghty- Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses? There are? Well fuck those guys for giving the moochers a free ride.
ReplyDeleteI love the rightwing version of christianity. Make as much money on war as possible, then, eh, let the bombs fall where they may.
ReplyDeleteI came here to write the same thing. At least he didn't propose invading all of central America. But I would not be shocked if bombing the refugees does get suggested. It combines his natural bloodlust with America's strength in air power.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely the parents of orphans should be taking care of them.
ReplyDeleteBut for some reasons orphans never seem to have parents around. I guess Geraghty hasn't noticed this.
First it was single parents, but that wasn't enough for our anything-goes modern society. Now it's null parents, apparently. I don't know where it's going to stop. The kids can't be blamed for the nonexistence of their parents, perhaps, if anybody can it's Jim Geraghty.
ReplyDeleteThe National Review Presents: The Parable of the Good Samaritan
ReplyDeleteOnce upon a time, a Jewish guy on his way to Jerusalem was mugged by a gang of urban youths playing the knock-out game. A Samaritan coming up the other way saw the Jew in the gutter.
"I'm not obligated to do this," the Samaritan said. "This isn't my responsibility."
At least they're consistent: giving those kids "free stuff" will encourage their parents to send more of them. Acting out of charity always makes things worse! It's just another justification for being a prick.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite part is the commenter who laments all the good middle class servant jobs being taken by latin ladies with pick-up trucks.
ReplyDeleteIt just shows how Obama has corrupted the nation by refusing to close the borders. In the Good Old Days the servants didn't have nice cars like everyone else. They rode the bus, preferably in the back. Yet they also were middle class, somehow, which just goes to show you that the erosion of earning power is another sin to add to Obama's plate.
Some followers of Jesus might think that the Samaritan should help but they are wrong. It is far kinder to not help them now than to have to not help them in the future.
ReplyDelete"Look, if I help you now, you'll have no incentive to avoid being mugged in the future. Don't worry, though, I'm on this. Once I'm back in Acre, I'm going to start a campaign to encourage the dignity of work. That'll put an end to these robberies."
ReplyDeleteWith only a few word changes, Geraghty's article could have been written in the 19th century about Irish immigrants. Except it wouldn't have been written by someone named Geraghty.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the Reuters article Geraghty links to, the number of children entering the country illegally in 2014 will be about 6,000 more than it was three fucking years ago. This is what all the screaming is about?
Aren’t refugees usually fleeing a war, anarchy, or a natural disaster? Do you get refugee status if you’re leaving an area with a high crime rate
Their boundless Christian love is really kind of awesome.
Shorter Jim "Uncle Ernie" Geraghty: Sure, kids are cute. But they grow up, and then what use are they?
ReplyDeleteAnd if you don't feed them now they won't grow up. Win-win!
ReplyDeleteShorter Jim "Sandusky" Geraghty: Jesus said "suffer llittle children." Emphasis on suffer, bitches!
ReplyDelete"Some will say it's the Christian thing to do . . .
ReplyDelete. . . but I say, fuck this Jesus shit! Let the little orphans pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. If they don't like being poor and orphans, that's their own damn fault."
I'm going to guess that Geraghty's priest administers the Eucharist with metal tongs and asbestos gloves because surely fire shoots out of Geraghty's mouth when he opens it to take Communion.
...some will say it’s the Christian thing to do.
ReplyDelete*Sigh*.
Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.
Ye shall not afflict any widow, or fatherless child.
If thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry at all unto me, I will surely hear their cry;
And my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with the sword; and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless.
--Exodus 22:20-24 (KJV)
Also thou shalt not oppress a stranger: for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.
--Exodus 23:9
And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him.
But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.
--Leviticus 19:33-34
Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.
--Deuteronomy 10:19
Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
--Hebrews 13:2
For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
...
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
--Matthew 25:35,40
To be fair, though, it's easy for those verses to be drowned out by all the ones condemning chemical contraception and abortion.
(I mean, really, when I was in fundamentalist Protestantism, the Bibles were mostly complete, except for the papist middle bits. Nowadays, they're apparently just Leviticus 18:22 in 24-point type, a portrait of a fetus, a picture of an assault rifle, and the word "Rapture" fingerpainted in pig shit.)
"...an endless loop of Three Stooges shorts with Sousa marches playing in the background..." You win the Internet today, Roy. Thanks for this gem!
ReplyDeleteAnything that a liberal might support has to be loudly denounced as nasty and bad, even when it leads to ridiculous statements like "Maybe we should let these kids starvebecause their dead parents aren't around to feed them." For a long time I thought the average NeoCon bloviator had a serious substance abuse problem because they never make any sense. But then I realized they're just stupid and mean.
ReplyDeletean endless loop of Three Stooges shorts with Sousa marches playing in the background.
But that would be amusing. The neoCons are after the future that O'Brien describes to Winston. If it is an orphan's face, so much the better.
Huddled masses yearning to breathe free are the worst!
ReplyDeleteHave you forgotten? How the wingnuts dumped the Statue of Liberty into the harbor 11 years ago on account of it was French?
Or: Don't cry to me because you were mugged. You shouldn't have been out here by yourself. And you were probably shaking your moneybags in a provocative way.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I wonder what these people think America is all about, but it's becoming clearer every day thattheir vision resembles an endless loop of Three Stooges shorts with D'Sousa marches playing in the background.
ReplyDeleteFixed. He did name his movie "America", after all ---
I'm Geraghty had lots of advice about what we should be doing in the Ukraine as well.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I wonder what these people think America is all about, but it's becoming clearer every day that their vision resembles an endless loop of Three Stooges shorts with Sousa marches playing in the background.
ReplyDeleteThough in their case, the Three Stooges shorts are directed by Sam Peckinpah (better yet, Wes Craven) and the violence is luridly rendered with arterial spray and "gibs".
Bleh. Historically speaking, when whites start whining because minorities are "taking" jobs that they have traditionally seen as being fit only for minorities, they follow up with lots o' violence.
ReplyDeleteAnd said shorts are consumed as porn...
ReplyDelete..But we’re not obligated to do this.
ReplyDeleteGood Jesus. The richest country in the world, so beloved by these mewling assholes, can't hack helping out poor kids. Because of "obligations". Just the same, it WAS our obligation to support death squads in their homelands and banana company militias because our freedom depended on it. We should run these Irish out of the pages of our conservative intellectual flagships. Fucking ingrates.
Help a man after he's been mugged and he has no "skin in the game." Teach a man to shoot his mugger and he'll be shooting people for the rest of his life. Or something.
ReplyDeleteIts very Buddhist, in its own way--acting at all is pretty dangerous stuff. Best to avoid it.
ReplyDeleteHistorically speaking when whites start whining at all they follow up with lots of violence. Its like an E.F. Hutton ad that ends in a massacre.
ReplyDeleteIsn't this "nits become lice?"
ReplyDeleteThe obligated bit sticks in my craw--its the whine of the angry, libertarian, teenager. "I'm not obligated to clean my room and you can't make me!"
ReplyDeleteWhich reminds me of why this sounds so very familiar: I just got partially banned from ManBoobz for chiming in on a troll baiting thread with a totally crazy MRA dude who was convinced that feminists were plotting to choose men's names at random from phone books, assign them paternity of the feminist's children, and then steal all their money without even borrowing any precious bodily fluids. His plan of action was based entirely on repeating "you can't make me give you my money with your evil plans. Or if you can I'll stop earning money! I'll burn all my worldly possessions! And then you will use your evil powers to throw me into jail as a deadbeat father! And I'll get raped by the other helpless male victims of feminist oppression! But then the heat death of the universe will intervene and make my misery and your utopia meaningless! So you can't make me bow down to you, oppressors!"
Upvote for "null parents."
ReplyDeleteGive a man a mug and he drinks coffee for a day. Teach a man to mug and he can pull himself up by somebody else's bootstraps.
ReplyDeleteExegesis is for wimpy liberal denominations. Real True Christians read the Bible as God intended - a long list of pull-quotes to wave in people's faces after you've spit on their shoes.
ReplyDeleteBart Simpson's tag line just became a lot more ominous. And gross.
ReplyDeleteI think when you go around telling everyone you are the greatest country in all of creation, you kind of do have an obligation to help out refugees who show up at your door.
ReplyDeleteYou know my own great grandfather (one of them) came to this country at the age of 12 or 14. His mother sent him away from Russia, on his own, with only one piece of advice "Don't trust anyone" and he made his way alone to the US. For a parent to have to send a child away on a journey like that--on a journey like these children are undertaking--the world they are leaving must be one of unremitting terror for them. I can only pray that if I had to send my children away tomorrow some kinder, gentler, more moral country than the one I happen to be living in would be willing to welcome them with open arms. I wish that the intransigent Republican minority would permit us to respond to our better angels and open our country to these children and their families.
ReplyDeleteThe 3 stooges should be big on those Conservative movie lists. No wonder. Perfect role models - the authoritarian Moe, who violently keeps the other 2 knuckleheads (liberals, doncha know!) in line.
ReplyDeleteMy kingdom for a way to like this comment a million times over.
ReplyDeleteTHIS.
ReplyDeleteThe refugee children have crystallized the essential problem of modern conservatism: Conservatives are utterly incapable of either empathy or sympathy. And, worse, they're extremely aggressive about it.
If "I've got mine, Jack" had a face, that would be it.
ReplyDeletePretty much the same for my great-grandmother, pregnant with my grandfather and with the father of her child lost to history.
ReplyDelete"...Three Stooges shorts with Sousa marches playing in the background." Hey, that's good. I'd buy tickets.
ReplyDeleteI think the Republicans sent their better angels away a long time ago, or maybe the angels just escaped.
ReplyDelete"Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, kick him in the balls and he'll go away."
ReplyDeleteRepublican Jesus (No Not pronounced Hey-Soos)
Once I'm back in Acre, I'm going to start a campaign to encourage the dignity of work. That'll put an end to these robberies...
ReplyDeleteAnd the fact that I voted against pay raises for the police force, voted against background checks that would've kept the mugger from having access to a gun and that I support having the police spend more of their time busting pot-dealers and harassing homeless people is neither here nor there.
And perhaps it's just me, but there's something about a hyper-privileged toad rapist whining because some of the nation's supply of government cheese-type product is being used to feed a bunch of kids that positively screams for a guillotine.
ReplyDeleteYou got banned?
ReplyDeleteThey ran away in utter disgust shouting it's too late to change them
ReplyDeleteOr "moneymaker" if it was a girl that was mugged.
ReplyDeleteMakes me shudder to think what these assholes would be advocating if Sudan was our neighbor, and the Lost Boys ended up here.
ReplyDeleteThose boys were mostly between the ages of 6 - 12 and tens of thousands (perhaps hundreds of thousands) fled attacks from Northern Sudan and marched through jungle and desert hundreds of miles to reach relative safety in Ethiopia. Along the way, they were attacked not only by troops but by lions and other wild animals. Many others succumbed to starvation. But Ethiopia - impoverished Ethiopia - took them in. At least until their version of teahadis swept through the refugee camp killing and driving the refugees out. The boys again fled, and under gunfire crossed a river teeming with crocodiles. Again, some were eaten. They eventually found refuge in camps in Kenya.
Conservatives find living up to the example set by Ethiopia too high of a bar to clear. And since the Lost Boys were black, they probably would have started shooting them by now.
Don't forget that you're also opposed to unions--even police unions.
ReplyDeletei hope your parting shot was something along the lines of investing in tin foil producers such as Alcan is looking like a bright future.
ReplyDelete"some will say it’s the Christian thing to do"
ReplyDeleteFor instance, some commie named "Jesus"...
Their better angels committed hara kiri in despair.
ReplyDeleteBut these kids aren't orphans--no more than many kids separated from their parents and relatives during war time are orphans. They can't be adopted and shouldn't even be fostered out without very, very, very careful attention to detail and licensing. They need to be reunited with their families. And the kinds of Americans who are adopting from abroad are not going to want these kids--because these kids are not true orphans and want/need to be reunited with their families wherever possible.
ReplyDeleteMight make an interesting SVU episode.
ReplyDelete"When E.F. Hutton talks, people **BLAMMO**"
ReplyDeletePensions = Slavery
ReplyDeleteHarrumph. As a fan of Horwitz, Fineberg, and Horwitz, I found that a bit tacky. If you think the boys are purely slapstick, you must not speak Yiddish.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that lying shits like Geraghty aren't struck fucking dead on the spot is possibly the best argument against the existence of an activist God who meddles in people's lives. Either He can't do anything, in which case why worship Him, or He won't do anything, in which case fuck Him.
ReplyDeleteDon't worry. Canadians as a whole are a pretty decent folk.
ReplyDeleteMore like: "Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
ReplyDeleteHarrumph, again. In Cash and Carry, they end up getting the little orphan boy his operation (courtesy of FDR no less). In Mutts to You, they save what they thought was an abandoned infant.
ReplyDeleteAin't nothing in the GOP line-up that comes close to that. Sheesh.
Can I get a witness?
ReplyDeleteI once interviewed a priest and asked what his response was to that very question. He said he'd never heard that before, then lapsed into silence for a minute or so. He finally responded in a very slow and halting manner, "I don't think I could live in a world without God."
I found that a very touching response. But it also showed that he simply couldn't face the question or what it implied for his faith.
Ya done missed your shot.
ReplyDeleteLet us all hope that the assholes with the rifles miss theirs.
"Hey Faddah, can God make a rock so big that He Himself can't lift it? (Ha ha, we got him there)"
ReplyDelete"Well, it's a mystery..."
George Carlin, Class Clown
Chinese Exclusion Act is all I'm sayin'.
ReplyDeleteBut we are the greatest, bestest, richest country in all of creation. We're exceptional!
ReplyDeleteExcept for taking care of refugees we helped to create.
Or fixing our roads.
Or funding our schools.
Or taking care of our sick.
Or caring for our elderly.
Or doing any of those other things that first-world nations do.
Mr. Aimai's great aunt had to sneak down through canada after being turned away at Ellis Island for bad eyes. I think she was just about 12? or so. People need to travel with and to their families--they always have. My heart goes out to the women travelling with their babies to get those kids to a safer place, and to the families who dropped their kids off with coyotes and just had to pray they made it through.
ReplyDeleteOr, as seen on the firing range wall, "We aim to please; you aim, too, please."
ReplyDeleteIt's also been attributed to Oliver Cromwell re: the Irish.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I wonder what these people think America is all about, but
ReplyDeleteit's becoming clearer every day that their vision resembles an endless
loop of Three Stooges shorts with Sousa D'Souza marches playing in the
background.
There. Fixed it for you ;-)
Not to mention we are the ones who toppled democracies all over the region to install our-son-of-a-bitch in it's place. not to mention arming their right wing dead squads cough-Reagan-cough.
ReplyDeleteSo yes it IS our fault.
Now you are getting them confused... You should be ashamed of yourself! Taking advantage of the intellectually challenged!
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately that would mean another 1000 miles trek over mostly hostile territory. And I don't just meant the desert.
ReplyDeleteFiring range?
ReplyDeleteMen's room wall.
In Jim Geraghty's world, the time has come, if not already passed, to sandblast Emma Lazarus's mawkish drivel from the Statue of Liberty.
ReplyDeleteWhole damn statue's French. Off with her head and then let's have some freedom fries!
ReplyDeleteYeah. He gets paid a handsome salary to write what he writes. Ain't wingnut welfare grand!
ReplyDelete"Let's see St fucking Peter try to put me with the goats when he has an AR-15 up his nose."
ReplyDeleteWe can add the million and a half refugees that economically sanctioned Iran took in from Iraq and Afghanistan, or the millions desperately poor Pakistan sheltered.
ReplyDeleteWe might like to pretend that other people in other countries don't notice our hypocrisy and lack of charity, but they do.
Again!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad no one mentioned D'Souza's shorts.
ReplyDeleteTheir better angels were killed by even BETTER angels WITH GUNS.
ReplyDeleteI agree - that's an insult to the Stooges (even Curly Joe)
ReplyDeleteIt's the only way to stop a bad angel with the stinging demands of conscience.
ReplyDeleteThere's a reason I don't post on Manboobz anymore and it absolutely rhymes with 'shmave shmutrelle's schmeribble schmoderation schmolicies'
ReplyDeleteCan't be arsed, but I remember stories following "Gulf War I" about Iraqis who helped U.S. forces interpreting & so forth & were therefore not necessarily the most popular people in Iraqi, but they were denied asylum, refugee status or whatever in these United Snakes.
ReplyDeleteThe heart-wrenching human interest & look-how-awful-the-gummint-is aspects make such stories instant media meat, & (still won't be arsed) I've memories of similar stories concerning Uncle Sam's little helpers in virtually every "crappy little nation" the U.S. has managed to involve itself in over the last few decades I've been paying attention.
So even if those punk kids had done something for America, what the hell does anyone expect?
The US Mexican border situation is unique in the world ibecause of the huge economic and cultural differences across the line. Which makes the undocumented crossings inevitable. It is an intractable problem. One does not have to be a xenophobe to appreciate that nations want to control their borders.
ReplyDeleteStill we do have to deal with the xenophobes so I suggest a solution. All captured illegal immigrants will be made slaves. Perhaps for a period, like 20 years. This might make our neo Confederate friends happy as it brings back their sacred institution, slavery, and it will surly limit the influx.
And honestly, I have no desire whatsoever to try and take that priest's faith away from him. He's probably not a bad guy. He doubtless provides his parishoners comfort in times of need and distributes charity and the whole nine yards. And if he draws support and comfort from his idea of god, more power to him. But I can't share his faith.
ReplyDeleteIf you do mention it, please don't forget to add "Oh, and no Irish need apply." Not that I think it would sink through his thick skull that the nativist assholes he's supporting are the descendants and heirs of the same people who would have told his ancestors that.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, the day I recorded that interview with him was the day he got word he was being transferred to run a priest retirement home. He said he would miss the pastoral work, but that he'd been trained in the church as an administrator.
ReplyDeleteOr
ReplyDelete"Step closer: You're Not That Big."
The heat death of the universe will intervene and make my misery and your utopia meaningless. [Neener neener!]
ReplyDeleteThat's just Looking at the Big Picture. Some days it's the only thing that gets me through.
I am not a Catholic, however, I don't think it works that way.
ReplyDeleteHe & Father Whoever enjoy a big laugh in the confessional over all the awful sins he committed against the poor that wk. in that good Catholic gent's brave little magazine, phrases are mumbled over beads, & Geraghty has a pass to eating & drinking J.C. Sunday morning w/o endangering his mortal soul & a guaranteed free pass for another wk. of sin.
That toad was asking for it, w/ all those provocative bumps & warty things.
ReplyDeleteThank God you didn't include Joe Besser.
ReplyDeleteOr we could just eat the plumper babies.
ReplyDeleteGive her a boob job, substitute a gun for the torch, and spraypaint "Holy Bible" on that tablet she's holding.
ReplyDeleteUSA! USA!
Possibly the tighty rightiest aphorism I've ever read.
ReplyDeleteShorter everyone-not-named-Geraghty: Fuck you.
ReplyDeleteHearkening back to Susanoftexas' comment about the Parable of the Good Samaritan- in the case of these children, at best this situation could be characterized as a "Bad Samaritan" situation. The U.S. demand for cheap fruit, hard drugs, and a commie-free western hemisphere has destabilized and paramilitarized the region.
ReplyDeleteIf the Samaritan had been the robber baron who ordered his thugs to waylay travelers on the road and had profited from the proceeds of the thefts, would he have been a good guy, even though he took pity on one particular victim and patched him up using the funds he'd stolen from him?
Obligatory.
ReplyDeleteSo if you'd stuck to calling him a misogynist dumbfuck, you'd have been all right.
ReplyDeleteI don't know. I can see the objection to calling someone crazy because Fristing is pervasive and that gets old real quick. Also "You're crazy!" is favorite tactic of the misogynist dumbfuck.
However. It seems to have put them in the position of tolerating behavior from a misogynist dumbfuck that they won't tolerate from a non-md, which is what the md wants. Talk about an own goal.
Oh well. I lasted two comments in Shakesville before they decided I was a racist dude. I giggled all day.
I wonder what they're like when they see those feed the children adverts on TV.
ReplyDelete"For just 50 cents a day -"
"50 cents! Are you crazy? It will just encourage those kids to rely on handouts. [Scrapes half eaten steak into the garbage] The can dig their own damn wells! I'll send them a spoon, COD! Damn it, now I've got indigestion."
Or even worse - Joe DeRita.
ReplyDeletewould he have been a good guy, even though he took pity on one particular victim and patched him up using the funds he'd stolen from him?
ReplyDeleteOnly if he then used the victim as part of his propaganda campaign to show just how nice he really is, and how we should all support his robber-baron ways because sometimes someone benefits--when the robber baron so chooses.
Real-life example: BP Energy showcasing the tourism directors of states that got bathed with oil from the well blowout in the Gulf. See how great BP is? See these happy, somewhat-less shiny people? (And pay no attention to the tens of thousands of fishermen and hotel owners we skipped out on paying damages to. And all those immigrant workers we hired to clean the visible mess up--and for whom we provided no protective gear. And all those dead birds, mutilated dolphins, wiped-out coral reefs: Nothing to see here.)
OT, but Salon's got a clip of Eddie Izzard saying the same thing about God re killing Hitler ("just flicking his head off"). Words to the effect of, "If He can't do that, what fucking good is He?"
ReplyDeleteI like how Geraghty pretends to be a "kind hearted soul" and "Christian" but then gives reasons why a beat down on kids is okay. He's such a selfish inhuman asshole of a human being
ReplyDeletethey decided I was a racist dude.
ReplyDeleteGENDERFRAUD?
... Whoops, wrong blog. Sorry.
Bullshit. If those kids didn't want to be orphans, then they shouldn't have picked parents they knew were going to get killed.
ReplyDeleteMoocher kids, gonna grow up to be moocher adults, suckling at the teat of Big Gummint, dragging down 'Murika.
Did Hoft change his name to Geraghty? Why wasn't I informed?
Sandal straps, if we're talking about the era when Jesus rode his pet dinosaur. Unless JC made boots from dinosaur hide?
ReplyDelete"And if you don't feed them now"
ReplyDeleteTo whom? Eric Cantor might be wondering where his next meal (ticket) is coming from, pretty soon, so ....
That's unfortunate. I've posted comments to the effect of "have you taken your meds today?" on one comment thread or another on one blog or another, not as a way of saying "go away, crazy person", but because the person was behaving in a manic manner or simply putting out word salad. I've been on both sides of that equation, both the helper and the person who needed help. But I'm not such a devoted follower of the god of inclusiveness that I don't believe in time outs when appropriate. (MetaFilter is very good about doing things like that, as they are very good about moderation in general--including allowing discussion of moderators' decisions in MetaTalk--but there are other things that they're pretty rigid about, including only deleting posts and comments under very rare circumstances, which means that there is at least one post and several comments that I made while I was blind drunk that remain in my history.)
ReplyDeleteThere was an old nun's tale about a kid who, instead of letting the host dissolve on his tongue during Holy Communion, took it out of his mouth to get a closer look at it, a no-no because only the priest was supposed to handle it with bare hands, and blood started shooting out of his mouth until he put it back in. Let's just say that I have it on good authority that that wasn't true, thanks to some independent verification because it would have been the most metal thing ever if true.
ReplyDeleteThe NATIONAL REVIEW is a petri dish of such nasty thinking and policy matters. Randians posing as Christians. Selfish scribblers working for the plutocrats. It's all very predictable and pathetic.
ReplyDeleteAmerica shouldn't try to be an orphanage. It should play to its strengths: creating orphans, all over the world.
ReplyDeleteHmmmm....
ReplyDeleteSomewhere Jim Geraghty's got the ghost of a great-grandparent from Across the Pond who's ready to inflict some serious ooga-booga on the boy. Calling TAPS!
ReplyDelete...and SCENE. Folks, this has been the funnest single thread in alicublog history, AFAIK.
ReplyDeleteBingo.
ReplyDeleteHonduras is the freshest example of this, is it not?
And rename it the Holly of Liberty...
ReplyDeleteAt $60K as pop, sounds more like they're being sold off...
ReplyDeleteOr an endless loop of D'Souza shorts with a soundtrack of the Stooges.
ReplyDeleteI can! I'm off today (fuck, I'm off every day)
ReplyDeleteSenate hearing on Iraqi refugees
Int'l Rescue Committee report on Iraqi refugees
What did Oscar Wilde say? 'A child who loses one parent deserves sympathy. If he loses two, it looks rather like
ReplyDeletecarelessness. '
No. Wait a minute. It was 'a man' who loses a parent. Sorry.
I dunno: petri dishes are cultured.
ReplyDeleteThis was considered (alas) "ableist"
ReplyDelete[Adds "manboobz" to list of sites to never visit even by accident]
Sounds like a place only an Anthropologist could like. Or stand...
America, America!
ReplyDeleteI named my films for thee
And ripped the rubes for stale Jujubes
From screen to shining screen
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than to like a comment more than once. Our Lord Diqsuq has ordained it, so mote it be...
ReplyDeletePut some Americans cowering behind her skirts, and you have an actual cartoon I saw shortly after 9/11.
ReplyDeleteAt LGM I had an interesting conversation about how strict language policing and trigger warnings can themselves be triggering to recovering victims of certain types of abuse.
ReplyDeleteI certainly can't abide places with those kinds of expansive, loosely defined content policies -- it makes me so anxious my stomach hurts. Being told I'm wrong is one thing, being told I'm insensitive is another, but being told I am a shitty person for using the plain English vernacular in a symbolically impure fashion is not okay with me.
At least in some places, "dumbfuck" (along with "stupid", etc.) would be considered ableist too.
ReplyDeleteHey! I posted that here on these very threads, but its too good not to steal. Share and enjoy.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was Terry Pratchett.
ReplyDeleteI've seen quarrels over "stupid," and heard "moron" and understand "idiot" are being added to the verboten list because of the history of those terms.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, it is some of the dumbest fucking b.s. I've seen in a while. And from what I've seen, the people who go on about this stuff in for the bullying, rather than attempting to make the world a nicer place.
Oh, I definitely stole that quote. I have no idea where I first saw it, though.
ReplyDeleteRight--they were all willing to argue and insult the guy as a liar, a poor researcher, a sexist, a misogynist but calling him out for illogical, narcissistic, and disordered thinking was a bridge too far. I kind of get where they are coming from but pointing out that a person is impervious to ordinary rationality and not amenable to analytic discussion isn't the same as dismissing people who are diagnosed bipolar or with other clinical diagnoses as idiots or arguing that so and so should "be committed" or given electroshock therapy. Nor was I arguing that his opprobrious beliefs were the result of a particular clinical diagnosis and therefore that people with evil beliefs should be forgiven/held not responsible "because they are sick" nor that people who define as mentally ill are likely to hold opprobrious beliefs.
ReplyDeleteI didn't say it to insult the guy, either like "you are crazy as fuck, dude"--it was more of an observation that we were getting pretty far down underneath the surface dirt of quotations from Ayn Rand or Warren Farrell to a deeper substrate of personal nightmare, terror, and myth. Really its only at htat point that you can start to have a productive discussion but it is also at that point that the guy is so frantic with rage and fear that he pulls out of the discussion entirely.
At any rate: their space/their rules so I (hope I) politely bowed out.
Excellent, great cartoon.
ReplyDeleteShouldn't it say "Fighting the Alien Threat since 1492"
ReplyDeleteMy First People friends prefer "foreign invaders."
ReplyDeleteThats touching, but so very, very, odd. Is there anyone in Christianity or Judaism who hasn't asked that question since the Holocaust (at least)? Or who hasn't asked that question at a child's funeral? At my niece's funeral (she died tragically and suddenly at age nine) the minister veered pretty damned close to suddenly blurting out "what the fuck, god???" before pulling himself together and managing a nice little homily. But it was really obvious that someone in a ministerial capacity was going to have come up against the brute force reality of this paradox at some point in their working career.
ReplyDelete"They cried out to God. They prayed, and they cried. But to this place, God did not come."
ReplyDeleteMaus
I was there for that discussion ,I think. It was very interesting. I guess I see a lot of this warning/triggering stuff as a kind of weapon of the weak--its often used by people who enjoy policing other people and enjoy the spurious authority of shutting down a commenter or driving a new commenter away. The people who are really potentially hurt by someone's imprecise or casual use of a particular term are often more robust or more experienced in discerning who the real enemy is and who is merely having a discussion about a topic and using language in an outmoded or problematic way. I've got no problem with someone tellin gme "Your use of that word hurt me because X" or pointing out the very important possibility of "splash damage." Usually those people, very generously, accept an apology and are willing to explore the point you were trying to make. But sometimes you can see that the warnings are really just there to maintain an invisible hierarchy of commenters--insiders vs outsiders, regulars vs strangers.
ReplyDeleteAnd these were the same people who were arguing that we should keep Elian Gonzalez from being restored to the arms of his loving father because: FREEDOM!!
ReplyDeleteReally its not that kind of place. I mean, it is that kind of place in the comments but the site itself is really fascinating and I think he does good work on, well, the Man Boobz of the world. I don't like the site's new name (We hunted the Mammoth) because it doesn't make sense to most people. But I've learned everything I (care to know) about the MRA/PUA movement from reading over there. I think its a great resource and the commenters share a rollicking good time with each other.
ReplyDeleteI got dinged by a mod about "lookism" at Shakesville after I and another commenter referred to "Gov. Goodhair" in a thread about Perry being his usual shitty self. I guess the mod was lacking in Ivins-fu. I applaud what they're doing there, and have paid more attention to what I say and how I say it as a consequence of what I've read there, but I haven't commented there since, and rarely visit. Such are the consequences of my wounded vanity.
ReplyDeleteDon't you ever drive a stranger from your door
ReplyDeleteHe may be your brother, your best friend, you will never know.
-- 'Careless Love'
Hah. I was just wondering what would happen if the kids were fleeing mandatory gay marriage and abortions at the hands of Islamocommies.
ReplyDeleteProbably not much. I think some of those freaks are convinced that Cubans exist so they can tell themselves they aren't racists.
I think that the Cuban case is pretty instructive. If someone is fleeing Communist induced poverty and lack of freedom the right wing in this country is on record with being willlin gto carve out legal exceptions, grant asylum, and give large chunks of money to the presumed martyrs for the capitalist cause. But let a Central American flee the depradations of corporations and agriculatural poverty, narco traffickers and other signs of the failed capitalist and authoritarian states and they are given the bum's rush to the door. No Capitalist Freedumb for you!
ReplyDeleteI once earned a bit of opprobrium for "hurting" someone in a thread, because I did not fully agree with her on a point. The opposition to me was unified and swift, but not exactly thought-provoking: when I pointed out I was remaining pretty calm despite being called angry names, I was accused of "exercising privilege" and was told it was okay for me to be called names because my disagreeable ("shitty") nature was upsetting. Oy. When the terms of the discussion are "whatever you say is wrong, whatever we say is right," it's not usually the smartest discussion, and it's not okay with me either.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I wonder what these people think America is all about...
ReplyDeleteThat's an easy one. It's all about them.
Send the Honduran babies to Israel, then. Problem solved.
ReplyDelete