Tuesday, July 22, 2014

REAGAN IS GROOVY, KILL THE PIGS.

A.J. Delgado has an item at National Review called "It’s Time for Conservatives to Stop Defending Police." She really goes off on the fuzz, man -- she's even outraged by the recent NYPD killing of Eric Garner, which is the first time she or any conservative I can think of has expressed outrage over cops killing an unarmed black citizen. She also claims that "the Right is waking up to this reality" in part because "the Tea Party’s emphasis on constitutionalism has refocused attention on the Bill of Rights."

If I believed this, I'd book tickets for the 2016 GOP Convention so I could catch the posters of Reagan saying "Kill the pigs," and the Chicago-'68-style riots. Forgive my lack of faith, but if you know Delgado's work, and the conservatarian movement in general, you will have already guessed what really animates her: she's moving to reverse decades of rightwing law-and-order advocacy not on humane grounds, but on big-government grounds -- because the cops have "generous salaries and ridiculously cushy retirement pensions covered by the taxpayer," etc.

But Delgado's not a good enough writer to leave her hand untipped. You may notice at the bottom of the article a disclaimer: "EDITOR’S NOTE: This piece has been amended since its initial posting." In the current version, Delgado warms up the crowd thus:
For decades, conservatives have served as stalwart defenders of police forces. There have been many good reasons for this, including long memories of the post-countercultural crime wave that devastated, and in some cases destroyed, many American cities; conservatives’ penchant for law and order; and Americans’ widely shared disdain for the cops’ usual opponents. (“Dirty hippies being arrested? Good!” is not an uncommon sentiment.)
That kicker was even more interesting in the original:
...conservatives’ penchant for law and order; and Americans’ widely shared disdain for the cops’ usual opponents. (A hippie being arrested is something people from all walks of life are usually happy to see.)
So much for Constitutionalism! Still more interesting is a passage that appears in both versions:
Conservatives are rightly proud to have supported police officers doing their jobs at times when progressives were on the other side.
This is the heart of the whole wretched thing. They still want the parts of police brutality they've always wanted: Physical intimidation of their enemies, and a vicarious feeling of butchitude. They just don't want to pay for it.

UPDATE. I think I may have found some source material for Delgado's anti-cop animus: From an April 2014 edition of The Free Thought Project:
Bundy Ranch Woke Up Conservatives to Police Abuse
Cliven Bundy, role model! I'd say he's got a pretty effective anti-police posse himself -- it's called the Militia Movement.

UPDATE 2. My Cali buddy Ben Thompson sends this lovely New-New Conservative image:


He's a hippie, Hippie Ronnie; that John Birch brain, that G.E. face...

In comments, swkellogg is succinct on Delgado: "A change in embouchure will still only get one note out of a dog whistle."

A few other commenters get to a Delgado claim I skipped over: namely that conservatives are also newly-sensitized to police brutality (besides cop-on-hippie, that is, as well as cop-on-unpersons to be named later) because "cell-phone cameras are having a tremendous impact... It’s easy to dismiss eyewitness claims of police brutality, but a lot harder to ignore evidence such as a video of a man suffocating to death." Jay B ain't buying that at a discount: "Bull Connor EXISTED in real life," he informs Delagado. "The historical record of cops killing unarmed people unnecessarily is so endless... that it literally takes the world's most obtuse person to not recognize that heavily armed agents of the state OFTEN ABUSE THEIR POWER." "It wasn't being insulated from heavy interaction with the police that made it easy for conservatives like you to dismiss eyewitness claims of police brutality," adds mortimer2000. "It was, and still is, your ingrained race and class prejudice, coupled with an authoritarian desire to see harm come to people you disdain."

Should also include some of Delgado's commenters for balance: "Progressives have co-opted the police and soon they will do the same to the military." "They have become storm troopers for liberals. BasicLly anti Bill of Rights." Plus a bunch of them claim that if a cop shot their dog, like a cop in Delgado's story shot someone's dog, they would kill the cop. Yeah, these are useful foot-soldiers for the Cause. (Funny thing, the only time in 33 years of citizenship I ever saw one of New York's Finest cock his pistol was when some homeless lady's German Shepherd stood up and bared its teeth at him. Having been bitten by a German Shepherd, I think the cop did right.)

151 comments:

  1. Chris Anderson10:59 PM

    long memories of the post-countercultural crime wave that devastated, and in some cases destroyed, many American cities

    Never happened. "Post-countercultural crime wave" means that liberals are to blame for everything, hence crime; "destroyed ... many American cities" means bad stuff happened by con standards. "Long memories" = echo chamber working nicely.



    Good luck explaining this type of writing to a nonpartisan outsider. It's like a fucking dystopian sci-fi novel, only no: our history sucks, but not at all like that.

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  2. So they think they've gotten such a good start on fucking teachers that they can go after police unions now?


    "Hippies" are the cops "usual opponents?" What the hell? Where are the savage inner-city gangster thugs of hip-hop culture?


    "The post-countercultural crime wave that devastated, and in some cases destroyed, many American cities?" (Literally destroyed?) Is that what's going on in Detroit? Hippies?

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  3. coozledad11:10 PM

    Nyah. When she says "fuck the police" she means take off your pants.

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  4. A hippie being arrested is something people from all walks of life are usually happy to see.


    Nothing quite like hearing hippie jokes from a person who's too young to have ever met a hippie.

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  5. Spaghetti Lee11:19 PM

    The right's hippie obsession is a whole lot of something. Did conservatives who hated hippies when hippies were actually a thing snidely compare them to flappers and jazz musicians? Because that's about the timescale we're looking at here. OK, some college kids 45 years ago did lots of drugs and talked about freedom. Christ, get OVER it.

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  6. coozledad11:25 PM

    And it got really hairy when a bunch of them dropped so much mescaline they believed in an impending race war. Then they killed some people.


    Charles Manson was always a prophet of anti-statism. A premature Paulist.

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  7. LookWhosInTheFreezer11:26 PM

    "If I believed this, I'd book tickets for the 2016 GOP Convention so I could catch the posters of Reagan saying "Kill the pigs," and the Chicago-'68-style riots."

    Come on, I can already hear Helter Skelter as the anthem for the 2016 Republican Convention. I could see Manson as the face of Tea Party Libertarianism (minus the free love) with his emphasis on race wars.

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  8. Spaghetti Lee11:28 PM

    Delgado's paid not to bring this up, of course, but the last time the conservative movement was in fuck-the-popo mode was during the Clinton administration. Once Bush got elected, they eagerly threw off those costumes and made themselves into sedition-sniffing watchdogs and high inquisitors against the crimes of insufficient patriotism and bloodthirstiness. Eight years later, they flipped the lightswitch again: another Democrat had been elected, so it was time to rediscover their principled opposition to the coercive power of the state and their devotion to individual liberty.



    I'd be more willing to listen to Delgado if I believed for one second that any of this horseshit was the least bit sincere.

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  9. Ellis_Weiner11:35 PM

    This. It would be fun--literally fun--to do an fMRI of Delgado's or some other wingnut's head when they're fed the alternating current of "law and order" and "individual liberty." It would be like a Twilight Zone climax in which the evil robot is stymied, and blows its mind (and a fuse) when fed contradictory commands.

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  10. You know, hipsterism being a growth industry and all, maybe hippie jokes will actually come back in. It'll start small, with some image macros and Tumblogs. Then you'll see the 180-grain LP re-releases of those old counter-protest parody bands. Next thing you know, I'm at a show and I run into some dude wearing a "Fuck Longhairs" distressed t-shirt and holding a PBR art can with reproductions of 60's-era Playboy comics.


    Don't think it can't happen. If anyone knows what way the cultural winds will blow, it's A.J. Delgado. She wrote a book about it, you know.

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  11. Derelict11:44 PM

    Yes, we should be paying the cops minimum wage (if that) with no benefits. After all, look how well that worked in New Orleans!

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  12. Another Kiwi11:47 PM

    Amnesia is a wunnerful thing. Forget the generations of institutional racism in the police force, what matters is Bundy's fucking free-loading cows.

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  13. Derelict11:49 PM

    Goldberg and Douthat will handle the free love part--with an assist from Ace o' Spades. They'll just mansplain it all.

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  14. Spaghetti Lee11:50 PM

    Ring ring

    "You've reached the office of Harry Turtledove. Please leave a message at the tone."

    Beep!

    "Yeah, Harry? This is Bill from Random House. Listen, we read your latest synopsis, and we're gonna have to do some rewrites. Don't get me wrong, the idea of Mitt Romney winning the 2012 election is interesting, but I checked with some guys around the office, and they're not buying the idea that the Republicans will suddenly switch back to being the pro-state-power, pro-intervention, anti-civil-libertarian party. I mean, after Obama's first four years? It's not 2003 anymore, Harry. They're really walking the walk now. Sure, maybe the new Republican majority in the senate would be willing to send troops to Syria, but Syria and Iran, and the Ukraine, and Palestine, and Mexico? And that last one: that's the one Paul Ryan started after he took command after Mitt's heart attack, right? Come on, Paul Ryan's too smart to throw money around like that, and he wouldn't let the tea party bully him into it either. But honestly, I bought it all until you mentioned that Ted Cruz had been promoted to Secretary of State just to piss off the Russians. Come on, that guy's a sideshow. No one takes him seriously.

    Anyway, this shouldn't take long to redo, but I wouldn't mind having a chat with you: I'd hate to think you're losing your touch."

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  15. plissken/ryan 2016: "when i get back i'm gonna kill you and cut entitlements"

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  16. +1 nervous laughter

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  17. AGoodQuestion12:02 AM

    Their unions are among the strongest in the country.


    This is all Delgado needs. The few remaining strong unions have to be crushed. She talks about the Eric Garner case, which actually does involve revolting police brutality, but that's barely even the olive in her martini. She'd be willing to put up with cops busting heads if they'd do it for Pizza Hut coupons.

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  18. Spaghetti Lee12:05 AM

    And here's their official poster: https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/4786236928/h1E1210B9/

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  19. AGoodQuestion12:05 AM

    Talking out your ass is pretty much the lingua franca at NRO.

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  20. weird, but i was doing some research on this just an hour ago.

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  21. That's more Star Trek, although my knowledge of TZ is lacking enough to say that they could've made a similar episode as well.

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  22. mortimer200012:13 AM

    It’s easy to dismiss eyewitness claims of police brutality, but a lot harder to ignore evidence such as a video of a man suffocating to death.
    The new video and photo evidence invites the troubling thought that this kind of behavior has long been routine. Only now is it coming to the attention of people who have led lives insulated from heavy interaction with the police.


    Fuck you. It wasn't being insulated from heavy interaction with the police that made it easy for conservatives like you to dismiss eyewitness claims of police brutality. It was, and still is, your ingrained race and class prejudice, coupled with an authoritarian desire to see harm come to people you disdain. It's what makes it easy for conservatives to ignore corporate brutality to workers, consumers, and the environment, and even celebrate the suffering of the poor (e.g. Roy's previous post).

    Did I mention fuck you?

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  23. Spaghetti Lee12:14 AM

    Perhaps the most optimistic part of the Star Trek logic-and-science worldview was that patiently explaining to someone the flaws and mistakes in their worldview would cause them to suddenly see the error of their ways.

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  24. montag212:19 AM

    Oh, yeah, the hippie chicks spat on soldiers, man. They destroyed cities from the inside out, man. They ran for city councils. And the worst hippie of them all, Jimmy Carter, bro, was gonna legalize the devil weed. The hippies embraced the Panthers, you dig, and now they're threatening voters everywhere. And they were pinkos, too.

    Kill `em all and let God sort `em out. Just don't give the cops the chance to do it first.

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  25. Specifically, that's from "The Changeling," Star Trek season 2.

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  26. Rodney King would like to add a "fuck you" to that.

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  27. Formerly_Nom_De_Plume12:43 AM

    A hippie being arrested is something people from all walks of life are usually happy to see.


    To amp up the freedom even more, you can even deny them affordable health care. If the freedom level gets any higher, I'm gonna explode with liberty!

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  28. swkellogg12:56 AM

    A change in embouchure will still only get one note out of a dog whistle
    .
    Hippies.



    Yeah, right.

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  29. Pope Zebbidie XIII1:31 AM

    Leech cows buffalo pigs?

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  30. That was after the fascists were defeated and the cool guys formed the federation. Star Trek was so post WW2, cold-war idealist American can-do, it hurt. Nice fantasy though.

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  31. Just think, today the only people wealthy or savvy enough to set up anything like a Federation are the Silicon Valley glibertarians mansplaining the errors of our ways.

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  32. ColBatGuano1:37 AM

    I think if you really tried to pin her down, she's probably more upset that video technology is widely available. It was so much easier when the beatings couldn't be seen on Youtube.

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  33. Jay B.1:59 AM

    Holy Jesus.

    "The new video and photo evidence invites the troubling thought that this behavior has long been routine."

    Blink. Blink. How does one even respond to that? Bull Connor EXISTED in real life. The historical record of cops killing unarmed people unnecessarily is so endless (The Haymarket Riots, for a single stupid example that came to mind, started as a peaceful protest about workers being killed by police the day before, then the dynamite came flying) that it literally takes the world's most obtuse person to not recognize that heavily armed agents of the state OFTEN ABUSE THEIR POWER. It's the plot of about two billion movies. It was celebrated in the Dirty Harry series and condemned in Do the Right Thing (The eerie similarity between Radio Rahim and Eric Gardner has been noted elsewhere).

    Of course you DON'T have to extrapolate reality from books and movies to understand police brutality is a thing, but gah, I'm sputtering.

    Being a civil libertarian doesn't mean we condemn cops for being unionized. God I hate these people.

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  34. Jay B.2:05 AM

    Also:

    The Right is waking up to this reality" in part because "the Tea Party’s
    emphasis on constitutionalism has refocused attention on the Bill of
    Rights."

    TO NON-IDIOTS, IT NEVER WENT AWAY, YOU UNBELIEVABLE STUPID PERSON. The Fourth Amendment was written 235 years ago by people who knew specifically that the state can overreach when it comes to "public safety". The ACLU has been pointing that one out for about 100 years now. I feel like I'm in a fever dream.

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  35. Are they trying to get ahead of a wave of right-wing violence and a resultant crackdown?

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  36. Wrangler5:13 AM

    Are you trying to say Jack Webb was wrong?

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  37. Hippies are back? Who knew? Anyway, it's a good excuse to change the ol' avatar; gotta keep up with the times, y'know.

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  38. Yeah, destroyers.

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  39. Michael NIlsen7:18 AM

    Yeah, Delgado's jumping the gun. They're not supposed go after the police and fire unions until Phase 2, AFTER all the other unions have been destroyed.

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  40. Derelict7:27 AM

    Maybe. But their real problem is going to be how to simultaneously claim Cliven Bundy as a freedom-fighting super patriot and shove him out of the camp for being a violent leftist after the shooting starts.

    Just like it was with OK City: The rightwing militias waving the bloody shirt against the tyranny of Clinton and the Democrats are all patriots whom we should celebrate.

    BOOM!

    Militias? Never heard of 'em. Don't know who you're talking about. But all of those white-supremacist groups are lefties, doncha know! Yep. Pure pinko groups. Look! They even live on farms out in the country, so OF COURSE they're hippes on communes, silly!

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  41. The wheel is turning
    and you can't slow down
    You can't let go
    and you can't hold on
    You can't go back
    and you can't stand still
    If the thunder don't get you
    then the lightning will
    ~

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  42. Jaime Oria7:37 AM

    From the always awesome CONELRAD.com:

    http://www.conelrad.com/greene/index.php

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  43. Bundy is fucking freeloading cows? Do tell!

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  44. BigHank537:54 AM

    Someone who can't even be arsed to read Radley Balko once in a while is going to have to put in some overtime to get the rust off their Junior Libertarian badge.

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  45. Bizarro Mike7:55 AM

    Suppose that this is ever successful and cop salaries fall to subsistence levels. What does Delgado think they'll do to make up the lost income? This is another great idea from the people who brought you disbanding the Iraqi army.



    I'm no booster of the police, but it is dangerous work and it should be remunerative. I also think good salaries make it easier to insist on professionalism, though current trends seem to show that greater surveillance by third parties tends to help more.

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  46. BigHank537:58 AM

    Why, you wouldn't expect Ms. Delgado to set foot in a country like Mexico that takes a more....freelance....approach to policing, would you? I mean, they're full of those people. Except down there, they aren't even illegal.

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  47. Derelict8:00 AM

    As would Eleanor Bumpers. And Amadou Diallo. And any of the thousands of faceless, nameless people of color rotting in jail or literally rotting in the ground due to police brutality and overreach.

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  48. Derelict8:02 AM

    And let's not forget the latest hot issue on the right: Anyone who every acted as a criminal defense attorney should be barred from public office forever. After all, the only way a criminal can get a fair trial is if nobody will take the case.

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  49. redoubtagain8:06 AM

    lingua farta
    Fixed

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  50. BigHank538:10 AM

    Delgado's paid not to bring this up, of course, but the last time the
    conservative movement was in fuck-the-popo mode was during the Clinton
    administration.


    Wasn't that when G. Gordon Liddy famously advised his listeners to "aim for the heads" of federal agents? I'm surprised they haven't rolled that clip out again.

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  51. I promise not to steal your face.

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  52. redoubtagain8:12 AM

    Isn't this the plot of "Bob Roberts"?

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  53. redoubtagain8:23 AM

    Free Love, Bacon, and Play-Doh: A Primer

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  54. The result of underpaying police is a well studied question. The answer is "New Orleans".

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  55. Gromet8:24 AM

    Well, but see, the constitution guarantees a fair trial. Is it in any way fair when some rich jerk is working overtime to protect guys who look very, very guilty?

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  56. tigrismus8:27 AM

    Police are absolutely more considerate and careful when dealing with someone who is armed and who can defend themselves.


    Yeah, they shoot them rather than beat them.


    This is the way all bullies behave. They prey on the weak, and in an environment of open carry there are simply fewer of the weak to prey on.


    Once all the bullies will have guns there will be fewer bullying incidents, he promises!

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  57. I can't get over these people waving the American flag during their shows of strength. What is "America" to them, really? They call themselves "Americans" but I don't think they got the memo.

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  58. In all seriousness, this really is one of my favorite aspects of Star Trek - through the Vulcans, it demonstrates that respect for life and diversity and people can be logical and rational, too. It's a necessary pushback against the "logic" of misogynists (they of the "hurr durr women are emotional, men are rational" strain of "thought") and capitalists.

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  59. Seriously, the logical end of that is for every single person in the U.S. to be armed and carrying. I think that prospect has already been considered. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellum_omnium_contra_omnes

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  60. Derelict8:47 AM

    They got A memo--the one that reads America is for the "right" kind of people; that America is the land where we are all free to conform in our own ways; and that real Americans have been here for not less than four generations, but not more than 10 generations, and can prove their lineage pure back to the landing of the Pilgrims.

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  61. And for the crime of believing that the ACLU applies equally to all citizens, regardless of their race or religion or political opinions, the ACLU has been thoroughly demonized by conservatives for decades.

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  62. Matt Jones8:59 AM

    Clearly, Delgado is calling for the role of political suppression of hippies to be taken over by private businesses. Maybe NRO could start one, and hand out BROWN SHIRTS...

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  63. Boy, there really is a rule 34 for everything.

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  64. Helmut Monotreme9:03 AM

    Just what it's always been. Crushing the weak to make a fast buck.

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  65. Helmut Monotreme9:09 AM

    The police are too expensive. The job is too dangerous. I am positive that when somebody finally puts lethally armed drones on the streets of America, this will be the rationale.

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  66. Case in point.

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  67. Jon Hendry9:32 AM

    lingua flatula

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  68. Jon Hendry9:36 AM

    NOT ON PLANET NAZI, THEY WEREN'T.

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  69. Brian Schlosser9:38 AM

    You forgot the dune-buggies...

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  70. The fact that NeoCons really do still shout about hippies gives me hope, in a way. I was raised around hippies and even I barely remember what they were like. They were often annoying, as adults can be to children. But I certainly don't remember anyone you'd want to see arrested or assaulted by the police.



    I take it as evidence that the Deep Thinkers of the right know their audience and that audience is old enough and angry enough to still hate the hippies for the horrible crimes of protesting war and bigotry and letting their hair grow long. (I'm sure they regret there's no safe way to invoke the happy image of old ladies and little boys being subjected to the fire-hose and police dog treatment, but there you are.)


    So for the most part we're talking about people who are at least my mom's age, but possibly older. And that rapidly shrinking group is the population the right goes to for money and votes.

    including long memories of the post-countercultural crime wave that devastated, and in some cases destroyed, many American cities

    [Checks history book. Checks another history book. And another.]

    The best I can guess is she means the riots of the late 60s. But so far as I know, places like L.A. and D.C. are still standing.



    I see by checking the gazzoogle, " post-countercultural crime wave" appears on her blog Sobering Thoughts (ah hah ha hahaha), and the update to her blog, the NR story + update, and here.



    Folks, we may be witnessing the birth of a buzz phrase. Mark your calendars!

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  71. Jon Hendry9:59 AM

    What do you think we have now?

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  72. Does not apply if the criminal or attorney is a Republican.

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  73. L Bob Rife10:10 AM

    REPUBLIKAL, INC


    "Is an extra-factual memory that convincing?" Delgado asked.

    "More than the real thing, ma'am. Had you really gone to Chicago
    as an AP stringer, you would by now have forgotten a
    great deal; our analysis of true-mem systems - authentic recollections of major events in a person's life shows that a
    variety of details are very quickly lost to the person. Forever.
    Part of the package we offer you is such deep implantation of
    recall that nothing is forgotten. The packet which is fed to
    you while you're comatose is the creation of trained experts,
    men who have spent years in Chicago; in every case we verify
    details down to the last iota. And you've picked a rather easy
    extra-factual system; had you picked Paul Revere's ride or Gettysburg we'd have much more
    difficulty . . . and the charges would be considerably greater."

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  74. The showdown at the Bundy ranch has largely dropped off the radar of ordinary civilians, but among the hardcore wingers, it's still a source of pride and inspiration. These guys will keep pushing until shots are fired, at which point they'll have to decide how best to separate their support for local police from their hatred of Jackbooted Feds(tm).

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  75. Ellis_Weiner10:16 AM

    "...hippies were notoriously difficult to herd into groups capable of destroying anything."


    Abbie Hoffman (ask your parents, kids) said, vis a vis the "conspiracy" perpetrated by the Chicago Seven, something like, "Conspiracy? We couldn't even agree on where to have lunch, let alone how to smash the state."

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  76. Actually, the thing I'm getting at is this whole "sovereignty" thing. These people want governance to take place at the county level--BLM officers, report to the sheriff!--not to say even at the level of the states. Uncle Sam be damned in their minds; I assume they won't be applying for Social Security or Medicare, and none of them are getting VA benefits, taking the mortgage interest deduction, etc.


    Actually, it was two memos: Convention, Constitutional; and War, Civil. Where are Madison and Lincoln when you really need them?

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  77. Should be amended to read: "There are no Republican public defenders."

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  78. "Steal this quote."

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  79. XeckyGilchrist10:53 AM

    It should be easier this time - point out that "Cliven" is a contraction of "Cloward-Piven," and they'll run away from him in droves.

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  80. mortimer200011:03 AM

    Yeah that line is truly breathtaking, isn't it? From Republic Steel to the Edmund Pettus Bridge to the '68 Democratic convention to CNN's The Sixties (which is on the teevee right this fucking minute), there was and is plenty of film, video and photo evidence -- none of which made the fact of police brutality at all harder to ignore for people like Delgado, even when it was staring them right in the face. Hell, for some wingers Lieutenant Pike's can of pepper spray was an unsung hero of the glibertarian counter-revolution at UC Davis.
    I should stop now before I start cursing again.

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  81. XeckyGilchrist11:04 AM

    Lingua Flatula was the only fun thing in Disney's "Treasure Planet."

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  82. "Progressives have co-opted the police and soon they will do the same to the military."

    I wonder what this person thinks he means. Given we're talking about people who still delight in hippie kicking, perhaps he's just noticed that the police force isn't 100% white. If that's the case, the shock at what they've gotten up to with the military might be fatal.

    And that would be a shame. Really.

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  83. First it was My Country, Right or Wrong. Then the country elected the wrong guy (twice), so it was State's Rights! But even Republican governors are reluctant to do everything the peevish shitbirds want, in part because that would involve disobliging their corporate pals.

    Next we had "We'll make our own state!" but I'm still not sure if those were anything more than a particularly clumsy con.

    So now it is county-level control. I suppose if that doesn't work out, they can go by neighborhood, street and then individual, heavily-fortified home. Or maybe someone will finally build one of those libertarian lock-down cities.

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  84. The symbol of the GOP should be a mayfly, not an elephant.

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  85. They're blocking traffic.
    Blocking traffic interferes with commerce.
    Interfering with commerce harms corporations.
    Corporations are people.

    Conclusion - This is a massive and violent assault on important and defenseless citizens. The police should break their heads!

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  86. That's the idea, the NRA represents manufacturers, not owners- gotta boost sales!

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  87. Especially appropriate in light of recent events.



    (I normally don't think of trigger warnings, but if insects aren't your thing, you won't like the video.)

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  88. He probably also wants to justify the GOP's indifferent attitude towards veterans- if vets are "those people", then they are undeserving of government handouts like VA hospitals.

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  89. BigHank5311:55 AM

    +2 shots of gin

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  90. gocart mozart11:57 AM

    Cops working for subsistence wages can always survive on tips. If it's good enough for waitresses... This works quite well in much of the third world.

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  91. They will miss the police when they are gone--well, until they fully replace them with Pinkerton style private armies. Which, btw, I believe they are already doing with bounty hunters.

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  92. Shots were already fired--how soon we forget! What about those Krazy Kids who shot two police officers and then went to die in a suicide by cop hail of bullets in the local Wal Mart? They were at the Bundy Ranch and ticked off Bundy by being too enthusiastic about the coming race and militia war.

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  93. They didn't "dismiss claims of police brutality." They celebrated them--she does so in this very article.

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  94. gocart mozart12:15 PM

    Wait ten years and you will be pining for the "good old days" of today.

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  95. Standing athwart history screeching "STOP. AND GO BACK ABOUT 100 YEARS!!"

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  96. gocart mozart12:20 PM

    I'm patiently waiting for a Muslim owned corporation to claim a religious exemption from a law. The sharia/freedumb head explosions on the right will be sweet.

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  97. So. WTF are we supposed to BELIEVE?

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  98. I think that we have to understand the Hippies as mythic. In its own way its quite fascinating. The Hippies, such as they were, were college aged white people who tuned in and dropped out, opposed the war, opposed materialism, were only personally not politically racist, were sexually loose, priviliged drug use over calvinist production for the market, etc..etc..etc...


    But they were the children of a lost and largely dead generation. They were the contemporaries of a generation above my own. They hysterical re-discovery of them as a political threat and as a sociological phenomenon is a fantasy construct. They are like some archtypal wandering jewish banker in a post-jewish Polish landscape. They don't really exist--haven't for decades--but they can still be used to alarm, tittillate, and activate a political frenzy among the weak minded. Its even reassuring--talk about plus ca change plus c'est la meme chose. You don't even need to adress modern enemies or manufacture new slogans. You can just dust off your grandparent's bumper stickers and slap them on your own car while you drive over the bodies of the new incarnation of your old enemies (now in their 70's) in the form of your own grandchildren.

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  99. At least until they realize the private police also expect to be paid.

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  100. BigHank5312:56 PM

    This will work great until the Pinkertons quietly inform that next year's bill will feature a 200% rate hike, because who are you going to call now, suckers, whereupon the noble libertarian iconoclasts form Galt Security, LLC. Survivors carrying the last of their possessions have been seen headed south for warmer weather...

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  101. petesh1:06 PM

    Clearly it would be wrong to thank you for doing that. But how do you handle someone who says that science (or DNA) says what it does not say? In fact, why would you want to handle such a person with anything smaller than a ten-foot pole?

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  102. In Harvey Dent, I assume.

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  103. Derelict1:41 PM

    I assume they won't be applying for Social Security or Medicare, and none of them are getting VA benefits, taking the mortgage interest deduction, etc.

    Oh, they'll take all of that and more. Cliven Bundy and his ilk firmly believe the government owes them. For the most part, that's based on nothing more than the fact that Cliven exists. The idea of paying into the system is for fools, suckers, and commie-symps.

    No, Ol' Cliven and his buds are all straight-up by-the bootstraps ranchers who don't need anything from the government except subsidies, free grazing, and police protection. And this ashtray. That's all they need.

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  104. "the Tea Party’s emphasis on constitutionalism has refocused attention on the Bill of Rights."Yeah, in the sense that they want to make sure their asses are clean when they're done wiping.


    I mean, never mind the usual suspects like Palinesque drooling gobshitery on the First Amendment, or the NRA's brutalization of the Second Amendment. President Obama had the nomination of Debo Adegbile blocked because these fuckwits can't understand the Sixth Amendment, and they're trying to tar Hilary for providing the Assistance of Counsel to defendants, too. Hell, If a Republican somehow gets elected in 2016, he'll probably try to quarter troops in people's homes just because that one hasn't been run roughshod over yet. And A.J. Delgado and her fellow diseased pigs' assholes will cheer him loudly when he does.

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  105. Do you really think that even private armies work out badly for the very rich? They know they can hire half the private armies to kill the other half.

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  106. I can't even. I get too caught up in it and then I pile on and then my email fills up with their crazed responses. Its like poisoned cat nip.

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  107. mgmonklewis2:00 PM

    I WANT TO BELIEVE

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  108. They are like some archtypal wandering jewish banker in a post-jewish Polish landscape.

    One of your finest.

    It really is fascinating. I often say they like to
    recycle but usually there's a little refurbishing over the years. The Occupants should have replaced hippies, but they didn't.



    Your explanation does explain why it has to be The Hippie and nothing else. Even imaging/remembering hippies as an all-white group gives the ol' 5th Column paranoia a tickle.



    I imagine it reinforces the need watch each other, and especially their children, for signs of heresy so it can be stamped out. And every sign of ThoughtCrime calls for greater vigilance and more rules and less tolerance for unorthodox thought, and then they start to feel nervous because suddenly Your Side has dwindled away and you know enemies are everywhere because you keep discovering them in your own camp, so you start stockpiling guns and yelling at all of the people who threaten you ...


    Hey. Hippies (at least the imaginary ones) really are destroying the Republicans.

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  109. Blood.



    http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tuxZmf2IMHg/Tx5jflJMtoI/AAAAAAAADNw/AfbIWo3WRbY/s1600/blood.png

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  110. I wanted to write something about this on my own blog but probably put it here somewhere. There is a real parallelism between liberal fears that their parents are being stolen by Fox News (after they retire) and Right Wing fears that their children are being stolen by worldliness and college and public education generally.


    Liberals my age, whose parents were liberal, sometimes find to their horror that after retirement their formerly progressive parents fall all the way down into mouth foaming troll like racism and anti immigrant sentiment. Meanwhile its a staple complaint on the right that the children are always revolting or being seduced away by sex, drugs, rock'n roll, or the gayz.


    So in the conservative imaginary the Hippies (and Yippies) are always coming to take your children, even if you yourself are the child generation. Even if the real hippies were your brothers and sisters or even you, at one point. You grew up into your status as an elder but your children's generation is seen as recapitulating a different trajectory.


    I want to say its like the Myth of the Eternal Return--we always play our assigned parts in this drama.

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  111. I have seen the finest boobs of my generation, bouncing along a city street late at night, herbal essence flowing from their tresses...Howl.

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  112. Damn you GM--now you made me look. And I'm batting 0. Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain. And I'm no god.

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  113. BigHank532:34 PM

    Until the last private army kills off the next-to-last private army, and starts looking around for a new bone to chew on. Machiavelli had quite a bit to say about mercenaries, little of it flattering. Few people realize what soldiers actually cost. Keeping one of our troops in the field in Afghanistan cost a million dollars a year. Even Jamie Dimon's salary wouldn't get him too far. Clueless twits like Delgado have spent their entire lives in the USA, which despite its wretched crime rate is one of the safest countries in the world, and they take it for granted. Surely there must be some way to cut costs and convince everyone the product is just as good. It's the traditional marketing-is-too-business scam being misapplied in the policy arena.

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  114. gocart mozart2:39 PM

    I feel your pain.

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  115. America is their country. Of course they expect it to fulfill their needs and obey their wishes. There's a gross Freudian analysis in which America represents a mother and wife in here somewhere, but let's not think about it.

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  116. Never in a million yrs. A giant of the radio & tee vee arts & industry.

    Sg't. Friday, on the other hand, was an idiot.

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  117. XeckyGilchrist2:47 PM

    Maybe they'll start getting into planned obsolescence, like the automakers used to do.

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  118. ADHDJ2:52 PM

    Two hippies, three opinions

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  119. RogerAiles3:00 PM

    Wingnuts are going full Occupy these days. Dana Rohrabacher is demanding an investigation of the abuses of a large, arrogant corporation, according to The Hollywood Reporter.


    http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/congressman-vows-investigate-google-searches-720485

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  120. Good idea. If Google has no (non-)speech rights, it & its ilk may be regulated as utilities. or we'll be letting Rep, Rohrabacher run roughshod over the rights of a private corporation.

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  121. RogerAiles3:13 PM

    "It’s easy to dismiss eyewitness claims of police brutality, but a lot harder to ignore evidence such as a video of a man suffocating to death."

    Shorter National Review disagrees: "The question that is emerges is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, hydraulically and hygenically, in areas where Negroes offend? The sobering answer is Yes - the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it has the advanced fire hoses."

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  122. Derelict3:16 PM

    America! Love it or, uh, Hey! How 'bout them Mets?

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  123. Gromet3:21 PM

    But--but those dirty hippies were sitting on a sidewalk in the middle of a campus lawn! And they were asked to move by a cop! If they didn't move, other 20-year-olds would have to step on the lawn, and worse, a minor authority figure would not imagine himself to be all-powerful. Tsk, there was so much at stake, those drug-smoking, kill-the-pigs anarchists were lucky to get off with a mere pepper spraying.

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  124. Derelict3:23 PM

    The sad history lesson here is that the rich can hire half the populace to control/kill the other half. Until the hired half is steadily confronted by people willing to die for a cause. At that point, the hired half starts wondering how to cash a paycheck from the confines of a coffin, and then decides that maybe working the deli counter at the Bag-n-Save is a much better career choice.

    Thankfully, we haven't hit that point yet in this country--at least as far as people deciding to kill or die for a cause. Let's see what happens when we decide that water is a luxury available only to the rich. Or that primary education should be available only to those who can pay. The perils of a large and permanent underclass deprived of hope and basic dignity are well documented throughout record history.

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  125. Gromet3:23 PM

    Actually, I think it caused them to explode. So that's about right.

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  126. Mooser3:30 PM

    "New York's Finest cock his pistol was when some homeless lady's German
    Shepherd stood up and bared its teeth at him. Having been bitten by a
    German Shepherd, I think the cop did right.)"



    Yup, dogs have very sensitive hearing, and the sound of a pistol being cocked is unmistakable! Dog heard that and knew it was time to back off, if he didn't want to see his owner killed.

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  127. Gromet3:32 PM

    Also in "Time of the Archons," versus the computer named Landru. I AM NOT A NERD. Fun side note: The voice of the Nomad Probe in "Changeling" was played by Vic Perrin, who also did the Control Voice in "Outer Limits."

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  128. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person3:33 PM

    Yeah, what is it with gunsels and Walmart, anyway?

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  129. Mooser3:33 PM

    It has been decreed that all American children, to the extent their parents can afford it, must grow up in the 1950's. And you know what came next, don't you? The Sixties.
    No wonder the conservatives are all so scared.

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  130. John Casey4:48 PM

    the police did.

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  131. Rand Careaga5:37 PM

    Roy, for that remark about German Shepherds I'm going to dock you ten percent the next time I drop Deutschmarks in the tip jar.

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  132. montag25:46 PM

    That's one of the least-heralded truths about the 1968 Chicago "riots." When I see photos and film clips of Chicago today, there's one truth--that there were a whole lot of young kids, the largest percentage of them sitting on the grass in the park, with eyes wide with terror as police in riot gear descended on them with billy clubs flailing.

    The real rioters of that event were the Chicago cops.

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  133. montag25:55 PM

    Almost from its inception a little over a century ago, the right wing of this country has described the ACLU as "communist," mostly for its insistence that the Bill of Rights applies to all equally.

    No, that doesn't make a lick of sense, but, that's what the reactionaries believe.

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  134. To this day it's referred to as the "Chicago Police Riot." But it's the hippies who were to blame. Funny about that.

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  135. Or a thousand.

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  136. Smarter than Your Average Bear6:32 PM

    shakes head - rereads, yup someone in this day and age, some 40 years past the use before date, is still using the word hippie to describe someone they disagree with politically.

    It's just a jump to the left, and then a step to the right. Put your hands on your hips; and bend your knees in tight......

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  137. Bitter Scribe8:33 PM

    A liberal is a conservative who got roughed up by cops last night.

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  138. The Skokie march must've really fucked with their heads.

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  139. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person9:32 PM

    Never throw away a good tool. Don't even let 'em get rusty. New ones cost so much!

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  140. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person9:39 PM

    Yeah, but whisper that it's a misspelling of "klavern", and they'll come sneaking back...

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  141. AGoodQuestion11:15 PM

    My eyebrows jumped a little when I read "New York's finest cock."

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  142. cleter11:38 PM

    The only people I knew who actually voted for Ross Perot were genuine big old hairy 60s hippies. Make of that what you will.

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  143. freq flag11:44 PM

    "Phase 2? What the hell is Phase 2?"


    --The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across The 8th Dimension

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  144. freq flag11:50 PM

    Your philosophy intrigues me, and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

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  145. freq flag11:52 PM

    +3 Cue the theme from "The Rockford Files."

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  146. freq flag12:01 AM

    The times they are a-warpin'

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  147. billcinsd2:46 AM

    or the Doom Buggies

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  148. gocart mozart11:41 AM

    Nazis are leftists, didn't you get Jonah's memo?

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  149. realinterrobang12:27 PM

    Yeah, you are totally a nerd.

    But don't say that like it's a bad thing.

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  150. realinterrobang12:30 PM

    I just did.

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  151. marxmarv7:37 PM

    Makes fine sense when one is obsessed with moral purity and cargo-cult capitalism instead of real outcomes for real people.

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