Tuesday, May 12, 2015

TWENTY MINUTES WASTED WITH GOLDBERG AND MURRAY.

"Is it time for civil disobedience? Charles Murray says yes!" So begins Jonah Goldberg's interview of Murray, whose new book about bureaucracy attempts to give a modish civil-rights frisson to the fight against our fascist government's onerous regulations on drinking water, workplace hazards, and other things that should be left to the wisdom of capital. It's in the form of an American Enterprise Institute video, alas, but I have nutshelled it for you:

Goldberg, who increasing resembles Sig Ruman, says he'll start with the riots in Baltimore, which he describes as Murray's "wheelhouse"; as Murray is best known as the author of a book claiming to scientifically prove that black people are stupid, you can imagine the gooseflesh among the brethren in attendance.  Goldberg's got the fever and tries to insert as a topic of conversation the alleged "debate about whether or not it's racist to call people thugs" -- though the closed caption guy has other ideas:


At first it seems as if Murray will oblige. "I'm old enough to remember what Watts was like," he says, and adds that he acknowledged at the time  "there was something really different about inner city neighborhoods," which shows just how far he was willing to go for Those People, but now after all the years you have the "same litany of complaints" despite "overwhelmingly Democratic control implementing Democratic solutions," i.e., using whatever  money is left over after the city or state has delivered all its subsidized stadiums, office parks, and other emoluments for the deserving rich to build an occasional playground or put another bench in the courthouse/cash extraction center. And now, says an indignant Murray, "I'm supposed to be moved when President Obama says 'we know how to cure this if only we had the will'?"  By God, he acknowledged something really different about Watts, but a man can only do so much! 

Goldberg informs Murray that  "I monitor a lot of mainstream media," aka "enemy broadcasting," and he has seen such hard leftists as Joe Scarborough citing the Kerner Commission, as if race had anything to do with it, which Goldberg attributes to a "lack of self-awareness" -- that is, "they all appreciate the irony but they don't appreciate the depth of the irony," which is that black people were happy under Giuliani, or at least terrified into silence. "You have solutions that are tried to no effect," sighs Murray, but "cold-blooded, hard-headed evaluation" shows there's "no effect" cuz look, a riot.

At this point someone must have held up a sign saying PIMP BOOK ABOUT BUREAUCRACY because Goldberg praises Murray for his assertion that "complexity from the federal government always backfires." "Complexity has a whole bunch of different aspects," Murray charitably concedes. Then he gets to his signal example of intolerable bureaucracy, and if you guessed "military" or "housing court" you must be new around here.

"Teaching kids is a pretty simple thing," says Murray, but teachers for some reason want to keep disruptive children in their classrooms. No citation, but Murray assures us there are "six different school of education theories" about "why you should leave that chaotic child in the classroom." Plus even if you get these monster children out, there are "25 pages of regulations" about how to get them out, not like back when Old Man Murray was a boy and you just threw them out a window. It's about "complexity of rules... a rule for everything" -- why, Murray chortles, "I bet there's a long list of guidelines about how much physical contact you are allowed in getting that kid out of the classroom, and if you violate any of those you got a problem." (In their Idaho Barcaloungers, his audience mistily dreams of dishing out some physical contact to young troublemakers.)

Goldberg offers that public schools are "a reward for the guild and less about students." Murray generously allows that for teachers "there's always an internal rationalization for doing what you're doing," but -- look out, "what I'm about to say is not data driven about their feelings"  -- "what it looks like is people making a pretty good salary relative to what they could make in the private sector," that magical place where PhDs are forced to work at Starbucks and millionaires only break a sweat during squash or rough sex; and not only that, these overpaid child-minders have "pretty good job security" (but not for long under President Walker!). Oddly, despite all these unfair advantages, teachers are also  "demoralized" and "cynical," not because they're trying to educate children in a country that spits on knowledge and prizes conformity but because, well, aren't villains always miserable in spite of their ill-gotten gains? Murray even imagines an interior monologue for these demoralized public-sector tycoons ("I have the ability to make trouble for you..."). Ugh, teachers, why were we ever nice to them?

Someone hits Goldberg with a spitball, signalling him to announce that while Murray's book is at odds with "the intellectual Zeitgeist," normal hard-working Americans sit on girders eating sandwiches out of metal lunch pails and extol his wisdom. Then Goldberg suddenly claims that there is some overlap between the Tea Party and Elizabeth Warren, and offers to "characterize" Warren's point of view, which he does thus: the "bureaucrats and the lawyers and the politicians" are "the people who are trying to help" while the real culprits are "the one percent and the billionaires and Wall Street and the fat cats" who are "pulling all the strings." To be fair, as he said this Goldberg did not roll his eyes and speak in a grating falsetto.

You can guess what Fishtown Murray thinks of that! He allows there's a "nugget of truth" in Fake Elizabeth Warren's argument, in that the "big banks and big corporations are in bed with the government," case in point Dodd-Frank (which, in real life, every leftist from here to the Finland Station wants replaced with good ol' Glass-Steagall if not tumbrels and guillotines). The real problem is that corporations are behaving wrongly "with the help of government," whereas on their own they're great, giving us proles "ever more reliable cars, ever more powerful computers," and "Exxon cannot come to my door and say fill up your tank with super or you're going to jail." (No, says Goldberg -- that's "the Obamacare model.") In the end, Murray claims he has "as many complaints about the way capitalism is practiced as Elizabeth Warren does," but this thing you lefties think is capitalism isn't really capitalism, it's a "perversion of what capitalism ought to be," and it's the government's fault. Goldberg, caught up in the intellectual fervor, adds his own gloss on a famous Adam Smith quote: two tradesmen, or a multitude of them, "can't collude against the customer very long without the government helping [them]." Look at the ethical utopia that was the Gilded Age!

Then it's time for Goldberg to ask Murray if he's an optimist or a pessimist. Had he any guts, Murray would have said that since he'd been successfully peddling this hooey for decades and there's no reason why the suckers shouldn't buy this latest bunch of it,  of course he's an optimist. But Murray's a salesman to the end, and so tells the punters  that two hundred years from now "we're probably going to be way wealthier than we are now," allowing his audience to believe that "we" means them, too, and not just a tiny sliver of neo-feudal overlords including Charles Murray IV.

Finally Goldberg has to deliver on the opening pitch, and tells us the book encourages "civil disobedience," though of course it's not the kind with "sit-ins and lunch counters" -- he and Murray share a laugh over that: Imagine us at lunch counters, like some low-IQ you-know-whats! You can read about this in Murray's WSJ essay, but basically, if all of us few remaining middle-class white people get together and don't fill out form 47-B, we can take this motherfucker down!  Murray explains this in terms honkies can understand: that is, with speeding tickets and NBA officiating as examples. Then another shared laugh about putting body cameras on bureaucrats -- ha ha, again with the you-know-whats! -- and we're out. Next week: The people united will never be forced to provide wheelchair access! 

186 comments:

  1. tinheart10:07 AM

    After watching what happened in Ferguson and Baltimore, it might be hard for Joneeto to get that civil disobedience pot a-cookin'. True, that overwhelming force was used against Those Blah People, but when that first policeman shows up Murray's Cracker Army will run for the hills.

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  2. M. Krebs10:20 AM

    "Complexity has a whole bunch of different aspects," ...


    You just blew my mind, man.

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  3. Martin Pollard10:26 AM

    Shorter Doughy Pantload: "Faaaaaaaaaaaaart!!!"

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  4. coozledad10:26 AM

    cold-blooded, hard-headed evaluation



    Is it racist to call them iguanas?

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  5. chuckling10:27 AM

    If being of recent African descent (taking the long view) were responsible for the recent rioting here in the United States rather than it being a rational response to systematic social inequity and state violence against a lower economic caste, then there would not be a such a long history of humans of all hues and places rioting over similar issues.

    Whut? History and Logic! Look, over there, some person on food stamps is buying healthy food, or junk food, or any food at all, and Obama is making you pay for it with your hard earned cash and freedom.

    Stay angry, my friend.

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  6. Halloween_Jack10:30 AM

    "Old Man Murray"? Heh. As for the subject of your post, Christ, what an asshole, and a fucking idiot to boot. He doesn't mind regulations for railings on catwalks, but objects to specifications saying that they have to be high enough to actually do what they're supposed to do.

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  7. DocAmazing10:32 AM

    Jonah's word randomizer (the one that he can usually rely on to title his books) has failed him, alas. He says "civil disobedience" when he's trying to get "massive resistance", and "massive disobedience" sounds like bad electronic dance music. Give the wheel another spin, Jonah.

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  8. What's that term for a circle jerk where it's only two paunchy racists getting each other off by engaging in a lot of dirty talk about their enemies as corporate bottoms - while secretly imagining themselves with a gas pump in their ass while Exxon cruelly pumps away?

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  9. JennOfArk10:44 AM

    The whole "don't blame capitalism for the government being owned by capitalists" thing is even weaker tea than their usual plaints. It's almost as if they think we've forgotten that they've been arguing that the wealthy should have unfettered access to purchasing elected officials from the early 70s until this very second. They used to cloak it with "as long as everything is disclosed" but now that disclosure doesn't even enter into it, they're more than fine with that, too - though interestingly, it seems it never occurred to any of their slack-jawed followers to ask themselves, "if my government is owned by big corporations and only does their bidding, what good does it do me to know who owns it?" It shouldn't be surprising I suppose...after all, their followers are people who have been convinced that people who own massive for-profit entities are more likely to be receptive to their needs than a government that they get to choose themselves.

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  10. Fearguth10:45 AM

    If I ever die laughing (and at 73, I'm convinced I'm going to die from something), it'll probably be while I'm reading one of your takes on Jonah Goldberg and/or Charles Murray.

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  11. "2016 Republican National Convention In Cleveland"
    ~

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  12. DN Nation10:54 AM

    http://i.imgur.com/yDx5gkd.png



    Well, yeah.

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  13. mmmmmmm that's good public intellecutalizin!

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  14. Teaching kids is a pretty simple thing

    Then you do it, fucknut.

    Interesting that Murray would dive into education, for a few reasons. First of all, that "disruptive children" stuff shows up a lot in reformer literature. A few of them have gotten a bit too honest about that and admitted that they don't even want to bother with the low-performers and hard cases, so we need to take their resources and funnel them back towards the good students (a.k.a. the David Brooks Model for Solving Any Problem). Now, I don't know for sure that Murray favors letting administrators warehouse all the kids they don't like (without regards to skin color...*wink*), but that sure seems consistent with his sentiments about our disgusting public school system that insists on educating everyone.

    The other thing tying Murray together with the hideous "reform" coalition is their view that democracy is an error that needs to be routed around. "Without permission" appears in the subtitle of Murray's book, and it is indeed a plan to break the system without involving those littlebrain voters (although he should really look up the term "vexatious litigant" if he think the Big Bad Gubmit has no recourse against his evil scheme). But the reformers have already been doing this, and their plan is even more simple: Want to set up a charter school somewhere, but the locals don't want it? Just get the governor to find some pretext to dismantle the school board, appoint a special administrator, and have that prick approve the charter over the will of the people. They've done that a few times, effectively suspending local democracy because those fools kept voting wrong.

    All of which is only tangentially connected to Murray, but you know what? I'm not sure that a racist turd and his overtly anti-democratic plot really needs a response, especially when his interlocutor is the High Minister of the Ministry of Gastrointestinal Expulsions.

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  15. Well, Murray's plot involves more paperwork than protesting, so I think they'll be safe (though a few of them will be filing with AR-15s slung over their shoulders, just to be safe).

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  16. HEY!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGaUcctRE98
    ~

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  17. dstatton11:00 AM

    Sig Ruman? I still think he looks more like Leon Trotsky. I hope I'm never near him with an ice pick in my hand.

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  18. DN Nation11:01 AM

    I applaud Murray for entering in the "old, surly dude wearing his finest plaid at the weekly outing to Cracker Barrel" phase of Wingnut Intellektual Dress Code; Jonah hasn't graduated yet from "middle-management JC Penney jackass with the top button unbuttoned."

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  19. dstatton11:02 AM

    He really distorted that quote from Adam Smith, didn't he? The economy Smith described in 1776 is hardly like our age of global corporate hegemony, either.

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  20. So a guy who believes that no smoking signs are fascism is having a friendly chat with a guy who believes that a few thousand billionaire-funded dipshits should have the authority to overturn the will of a hundred million people, and he's accusing someone else of lacking self-awareness?

    No, that sounds about right.

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  21. Complexity has a whole bunch of different aspects



    "And here, we begin the part of the book that I let my twelve-year old stoner grandson write. Oh wait...never mind, that was me also."

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  22. it's the aei-pixie-alex-p.-keaton look goldberg was and is eternally thankful for; as long as there's a "sha" to be "lalala'd," jonah will kick the weak tea blue sans tie and beige-ish coat.

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  23. why, Murray chortles, "I bet there's a long list of guidelines about how
    much physical contact you are allowed in getting that kid out
    of the classroom, and if you violate any of those you got a problem."I'll be back later, guys. I'm on my way over to Charles Murray's house with a baseball bat to "agree" with him about the stupidity of nanny goverment regulation of physical contact.

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  24. whetstone11:26 AM

    a modish civil-rights frisson to the fight against our fascist government's onerous regulations on drinking water

    No one's stopping you from walking down to the drainage ditch with a camping filter. Make sure you don't cross-contaminate; giardia's really pretty bad.

    "I'm old enough to remember what
    Watts was like," he says


    Actually, he's old enough to remember cross-burnings. Quite vividly remember them, I would imagine.

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  25. Smurch11:28 AM

    The only way to enhance the sartorial perfection of this comment would be to add a jaunty porkpie hat to its well-barbered head.

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  26. "Is it time for civil disobedience? Charles Murray says yes!"He ... actually pivoted from that right into mutual tut-tutting about all the rioting Negro thugs? I admit to some grudging admiration; many of their fellow travelers would be timid enough to let some time pass first.
    well, aren't villains always miserable in spite of their ill-gotten
    gains?I dunno ... Murray looks pretty chipper.

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  27. Make sure you don't cross-contaminate; giardia's really pretty bad.Sssshhh.

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  28. Ted the slacker12:17 PM

    If "those people" have #handsupdontshoot and #blacklivesmatter, which seem to work, what clever hashtags can our derpists for freedom come up with?
    #pensdowndontsendreminderemail ... #oldwhiteguysfeelingsmatter ... #mightgogaltsomeday ... #campaignfortaxfreewingnutwelfare

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  29. Jay B.12:22 PM

    In the end, Murray claims he has "as many complaints about the way capitalism is practiced as Elizabeth Warren does," but this thing you lefties think is capitalism isn't really capitalism, it's a "perversion of what capitalism ought to be," and it's the government's fault.


    This is the Libertarian Redoubt -- after having their run of the economic system under 40 years of deregulation and watching it fail all but the tiniest percentage of people, they hole up in the argument that we're still wrong because their own theory was hijacked by capitalists who are doing it wrong. It's harder and harder to not want in on the whole neo-Jacobin kick.

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  30. LA Julian12:26 PM

    First of all, that "disruptive children" stuff shows up a lot in
    reformer literature. A few of them have gotten a bit too honest about
    that and admitted that they don't even want to bother with the
    low-performers and hard cases, so we need to take their resources and
    funnel them back towards the good students (a.k.a. the David Brooks
    Model for Solving Any Problem).

    In private this has been openly discussed since the Seventies, with a great deal of admiration for (what they believe to be) the European model of tracking the "uneducable" into non-academic trade paths so that their own gifted-and-talented offspring won't be dragged down by the vulgar plebs.

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  31. Speaking of WITCH...

    Activist Alert: Call Your Senators Today to Stop Fast Track

    http://www.iam2003.org/activist-alert-call-your-senators-today-to-stop-fast-track/
    ~

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  32. Ted the slacker12:45 PM

    Curiously, die-hard Marxists tell you exactly the same story about the Soviet Union. Communism didn't fail, it was simply wrongly implemented.

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  33. Ted the slacker12:47 PM

    My favorite Adam Smith fact: he believed interest rates should be capped by the government.
    Still waiting for Galtian voyeurists like Loadpants to explain how this could be ok.

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  34. tinheart12:57 PM

    "No *true* capitalist...." (The untrue capitalists are partying with the untrue communists, Christians and Scotsmen.)

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  35. Gromet1:06 PM

    The Communists make a stronger case. When Marx was sipping espresso in Paris, trying to figure out how workers could run the joint, he probably didn't picture the gulag, five-year plans from a Central Committee, and 50 years of secrecy and war.

    Meanwhile: Libertarianism's foundational daydream is the rapture of the Elect to a secret valley of infinite power and no labor. "Implementing it right" pretty much depends on slavery, disarray, and a Thunderdome.

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  36. Jay B.1:12 PM

    It drives me nuts, because these same lying/evil/stupid fuckheads ALSO deny the existence and efficacy of a mixed economy where (or in the American case, when) labor plays a much stronger role in setting salaries and helping build a stronger economy with less inequality while still making excellent consumer products! They gloss over Germany, France, Japan, Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, even though these very entrepreneurial countries have the small businesses Murray claims to love AND the multinationals that generate bigtime wealth -- the difference is that the government regulations serve consumers AND labor, not (always) business.

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  37. JennOfArk1:12 PM

    He also identified "excess profits" as undesirable and to be avoided, said that all workers should enjoy not only sustenance but also such extras as are "customary" for decent folk, & etc. Funny how conservatives forget all those parts.

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  38. JennOfArk1:15 PM

    I laffed, even though at the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland there will be more like 20,000 paunchy racists in attendance.

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  39. drspittle1:22 PM

    Paunchy and pasty, also too.

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  40. Gromet1:24 PM

    Tonight on Fox: Liberal blogs kill the elderly!

    "Here in black and white, this 73-year-old man warned a liberal blogger that he was going to die from what the blogger was doing. 'I'm convinced,' he wrote. But did that stop the liberal from posting -- again, and again, and again? No. It never does with liberals. Steve?"

    "Thanks, Andrea, yes, and a lot of people are saying this is exactly like what happened to Freddie Gray. He told the police he couldn't breathe, and they drove around with him anyway. Except it's worse in this case, because that was a multiethnic, therefore nonracial, mistake, and Gray was making felonious eye contact. Here, the victim made no eye contact, put his plea in writing -- and there were hundreds of liberal witnesses who did nothing to save him."

    "Liberals are the real racists, Steve. Do we know the race of the victim?"

    "As conservatives, we never see color, Andrea, but he appears to have been fluorescent yellow, magenta, and neon blue."

    "So a man with severe birth defects? Is that who the liberals have killed? My goodness, it's like Nazi Germany!"

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  41. Complexity has a whole bunch of different aspects
    Wow! Heavy, man!
    Just like the 7 Blind Men & The Elephant! Hey, they should put that on a Starbucks Mug!

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  42. Just think- they put a lot of time and effort and thought into those clothes!

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  43. Today's comments are all sparkling... I guess they have many different aspects facets. Very pretty!

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  44. Just like "The Land Before Time" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJg3GP4tH94 where a few of the Dinosaurs (conservative Billionaires) survive to nurture the uplift of many new species (aspects!) of.... Kockroaches!

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  45. Ted the slacker1:47 PM

    They might, had Marx created a coherent blueprint. (IMO, his strength was pointing out the weaknesses of capitalism - and by extension, presenting ideas on how to regulate such a system - but he didn't create a viable alternative.)
    The libertarian contribution to the history of economic thought however amounts to a fart in an elevator.

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  46. Yeah, just like Trump and the Kocks and Jamie Dimon are all so openly miserable...

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  47. Ted the slacker1:49 PM

    "Adam Smith was a Pinko" would be a fun blog.

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  48. BG, puppet making crank calls1:55 PM

    "overwhelmingly Democratic control implementing Democratic solutions," i.e., using whatever money is left over for after the city or state has delivered all its subsidized stadiums, office parks, and other emoluments for the deserving rich to build an occasional playground or put another bench in the courthouse/cash extraction center.


    They just love this scam. Give to the rich, fuck the poor, blame the Democrats.

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  49. redoubtagain2:00 PM

    Finally Goldberg has to deliver on the opening pitch, and tells us the book encourages "civil incoherence,"

    Fixed

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  50. Jay B.2:06 PM

    They are literally the types of people who kill their parents (or in this case any regulatory structure and labor protections) and then whine about being orphans (because who could forsee that capital would move to consolidate?!).

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  51. Orders of magnitude have a liberal bias.

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  52. Actually, you misspelled "incontinence."

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  53. mortimer20002:16 PM

    Much gratitude for wasting the 20 minutes. But look on the bright side: this is the kind of scintillating crap one could endure for an entire fucking WEEK this summer on the NRO cruise! I can't imagine anything more tortuous than listening to these privileged assholes complain about The America Stolen From Them By Other Americans They Hate. The circle jerk will have to be held around the main deck pool just to hold all the conservative spunk manually threshed to relieve their painfully engorged White Man's Burden.

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  54. dstatton2:33 PM

    All they know is the Invisible Hand.

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  55. swkellogg2:44 PM

    "...two hundred years from now "we're probably going to be way wealthier than we are now,""



    And here I thought in the long run we're all dead.


    It's nice to know that under the economic models posited by festering racist assholes we'll have both immortality AND a pony!

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  56. Bizarro Mike2:48 PM

    I maintain that no libertarian wants the libertarian paradise. They're hoping to scam everyone else in the new rules-free society.

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  57. swkellogg2:59 PM

    In the end, Murray claims he has "as many complaints about the way capitalism is practiced as Elizabeth Warren does,"



    Yeah but Warren's not complaining about the fact that you're not holding your ass up high enough for "The Master".

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  58. It's not just the privileged who complain about The America Stolen From Them By Other Americans They Hate.


    In the shop where I work, ordinary working-class people complain about exactly the same things, except with saltier language.

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  59. Gromet3:10 PM

    I agree about Marx -- my whole experience of him was a freshman Pol. Sci. class taught by a TA who assigned only Marx and Marx-concurring stuff. I remember being occasionally blown away by how spot-on his critiques of capitalism could get... but mystified that anyone thought he'd created a basis for something other than capitalism. The Communist Manifesto itself is transparently useless, I thought at 19, so who knows how it struck a chord with enough people to turn into the USSR. (But I guess a lifetime as a serf + a couple years getting shot at in a frozen trench because your czar can't figure out a way to settle with his cousins in Germany + knowing you'll just go back to being a serf as soon as someone wins = Jeez, ANYTHING sounds better.)

    I also agree about libertarianism.

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  60. swkellogg3:11 PM

    "...though interestingly, it seems it never occurred to any of their slack-jawed followers to ask themselves, "if my government is owned by big corporations and only does their bidding, what good does it do me to know who owns it?""



    My expectations of slack-jawed followers are decidedly much lower than yours.


    Now if you'll excuse me, I feel a libety vs. tranny moment coming on.

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  61. John Wesley Hardin3:55 PM

    Chuck "Flavor Flav" Murray sez "yeah that's right. Y'all know what time it is!"

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  62. John Wesley Hardin3:57 PM

    "Twelve-year-old stoner" so his parents were Rainbow Family. Don't judge.

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  63. John Wesley Hardin3:59 PM

    "Like, what if complexity just had like one aspect, man. Think about it; it's like, simple complexity."


    "Dude, you're like fucking Steven Hawking over here."

    And thus concludes another episode of "Dorm Room Epiphanies."

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  64. OK, I'm number 65 in comments so this just relates to having just read the original post but "Oh for fuck's sake" is all I have to say about the entire interview.

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  65. Oh, its Robert "let me sue you" Bork all over again.

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  66. Or the kinds of people who refuse to buy Obamacare policies because they want to "take care of their own bills" and then, when they are diagnosed with a severe illness, become enraged that they can no longer buy an Obamacare policy with a subsidy and blameObama for poorly drafting the ACA and forcing them to live as a republican in a republican state which didn't do the medicaid expansion. Still, the orphan example is shorter.

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  67. swkellogg4:19 PM

    I think I saw Massive Disobedience when they toured with the Idaho Barcaloungers.


    Worst pairing since Rush and Blondie.

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  68. PulletSurprise4:20 PM

    In Goldberg's world? Tuesday.

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  69. swkellogg4:27 PM

    Gonna ring his bell curve!

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  70. I think one of the Star Trek episodes or movies had something about an uncomplicated aspect of something... maybe Evil Spock?

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  71. You definitely have what it takes to write for FOX.

    I mean, if you ever wanted to for some reason.

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  72. John Wesley Hardin5:39 PM

    "Yeah, that one where he had the beard and shit, he's all like "live shortly and don't prosper, brah!' yeah, I saw that one. We got any more Doritos?"

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  73. Christopher Hazell6:26 PM

    You can read about this in Murray's WSJ essay, but basically, if all of us few remaining middle-class white people get together and don't fill out form 47-B, we can take this motherfucker down!


    This is literally what every citizen does at all times, though. The laws that supposedly govern us are so many and so complicated that it takes years of study to understand even a fraction of them. So the only solution for the non-lawyer is to basically make an educated guess about what will actually get you in trouble, and try not to do that.


    It's actually pretty astonishing that a system like that can even function.


    So, the Baltimore protests and riots were in response to an enormous government bureaucracy that gives the people within it the ability to harass, beat, and imprison citizens regardless of innocence, and allows those same citizens very little power to stop, protest or change the workings of that bureaucracy.


    Clearly Murray must be on the side of the protestors, yeah?


    I feel like lately there's this insane argument where a lot of people on the left and right believe that "racism" and "government overreach" are somehow competing explanations for police brutality, as though if one were true the other would be false, which is just bizarre to me.


    A person who asked "Was the problem with the Nazi government that it was extremely racist? Or was the problem with them that they had so much authority that they could put people into camps?" would seem nuts, because the answer is clearly that both those things were major problems.

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  74. Christopher Hazell6:31 PM

    Except that same deregulatory period also is a period where you still have enormous government subsidies and aid still coming to those corporations, and, compared to most of human history, even the last 40 years are still very highly regulated.


    I'm not saying any particular libertarian solution would work, but most of them haven't really been tried.

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  75. Jay B.6:54 PM

    Not actually true.. The 1980 Libertarian Platform has been widely adopted, particularly in the civil rights and economic arena.

    Let's start with labor: While they 'support' the voluntary joining of unions and 'oppose' Right to Work laws, here's the uselessness of those positions: "An employer should have the right to recognize, or refuse to recognize, a union as the collective bargaining agent of some or all of his or her employees." That of course, is happening. Except now the basic Libertarian position is right to work anyway.

    On discrimination: Protective labor laws, Selective Service laws, and other laws which violate rights selectively should be repealed entirely rather than being extended to all groups. And viola! The Civil Rights Act is gutted.

    On the macroeconomy:

    1. The Economy

    Government intervention in the economy imperils both the personal freedom and the material prosperity of every American. We therefore support the following specific immediate reforms:

    a. drastic reduction of both taxes and government spending;

    b. an end to deficit budgets;

    c. a halt to inflationary monetary policies;

    d. the removal of all governmental impediments to free trade; and

    e. the repeal of all controls on wages, prices, rents, profits, production, and interest rates.


    They are about 60% there. What do you think, Christopher? No? These things aren't part of the conversation or haven't been tried?

    Here's the dereg on the financial institutions:
    a. the lifting of all restriction on branch banking; (a disastrous reality)
    b. the repeal of all state usury laws; (yup, in the sense of payday loans and credit card payments)
    c. the removal of the prohibition of interest for demand deposits;
    d. the abolition of Federal Reserve control over the interest paid on time deposits;
    e. the elimination of margin requirements on stock purchases (which happened and basically cratered the global economy)
    f. the revocation of all other selective credit controls.




    Their take on monopolies is also a laugh riot. So while they "abhor" coercive monopolies, they literally don't want any federal check AGAINST them. It's the plausible deniability for the dystopia they have been agitating for for five decades. They've gotten a lot of what they've asked for -- again, look at the platform -- but aren't willing to take the heat for the logical extension of where unfettered "capitalism" with a weak central government would go. The subsidies scam IS a part of the GOP brand of Big Government and its disgusting -- but then, the Libertarians want to ensure that the government wouldn't be able to actually function in the first place, so subsidies are a moot point. We are certainly much closer to the libertarian ideal than we are to the mixed economic ideal in no small part because of their attack on labor unions and sensible regulations against corporate hegemony.

    ReplyDelete
  76. See, the folks in Baltimore should have just said they were all about grazing rights, legal pot and ethics in videogaming.

    ReplyDelete
  77. but now after all the years you have the "same litany of
    complaints" despite "overwhelmingly Democratic control implementing
    Democratic solutions," i.e., using whatever money is left over for
    after
    the city or state has delivered all its subsidized stadiums, office
    parks, and
    other emoluments for the deserving rich to build an occasional
    playground or put another bench in the courthouse/cash extraction center.


    Yeah, the other day when we were in the hospital there was CNN or something on and some white boy yahoo was going on about Democrat control and yadda yadda; the TV was up on the wall so unfortunately I couldn't take it and throw it through the window.

    ReplyDelete
  78. "Goldberg informs Murray that "I monitor a lot of mainstream media"
    He watches TV all day. We knew that already.

    ReplyDelete
  79. Well, Democrats keep putting band-aids over the giant rotting sores! How stupid is THAT? *administers medicine to cause more giant rotting sores*

    ReplyDelete
  80. but but but decadent Eurotrash socialism! Or something!

    ReplyDelete
  81. Engels was the idea guy, if I remember correctly.

    ReplyDelete
  82. #awfuckitjustburnpoorpeopleforfuel

    ReplyDelete
  83. Oswig studied Moncrief for a long moment. "Doubtless, you are a deep-dyed scholar, and a past master of poodle-de-doodle. Also, you have read several books."

    ReplyDelete
  84. I thought he was wingnut welfarey enough to hire someone to watch it for him.

    ReplyDelete
  85. Even with gravy in his eyebrows.

    ReplyDelete
  86. *sigh* *picks up icepick*

    Just point me in the right direction, please. I'm willing to take one for the team.

    ReplyDelete
  87. Well, they're certainly not wasting time and thought on anything else.

    ReplyDelete
  88. Well, since all the hitherto true Scotsmen are voting for socialism and nuclear disarmament that argument may just have to retire.

    ReplyDelete
  89. It's called "EWWWW".

    ReplyDelete
  90. You seen one paunchy racist, you seen 'em all.

    ReplyDelete
  91. You know what, I think they know. They just don't want anybody else to know, because it would spoil their plans. They don't give shit about prosperity, they just want all the money.

    ReplyDelete
  92. Us poor people are just being difficult in not learning photosynthesis.

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  93. Not Dukes of Hazzard reruns. The hireling watches PBS and Mad Men and CNBC and stuff.

    ReplyDelete
  94. Maybe that's what he was talking about when he said he "monitors a lot of mainstream media."

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  95. Cryogenic heads living the life of luxury. I hope he ends up on a shelf next to Al Sharpton.

    ReplyDelete
  96. ohsopolite7:45 PM

    I don't care what you say--no way am I getting wasted with Charles and Jonah. Talk about a bad trip....

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  97. mgmonklewis7:47 PM

    J-Load only has the one outfit. He had it Scotchguarded™ against Cheeto and Mallomar stains, so he wears it like armor.

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  98. The comic "Ragmop" (which was a hoot) had a running backup feature about Adam Smith and the stuff he actually said. Worth a look if you get a chance.

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  99. How many normal individuals have ever been stymied by government bureaucracy? He'll, even going to the DMV is a snap these days. Bureaucratic snarls are only for corporations and the sort of assholes who want to go fishing with explosives or to practice medicine without a license.

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  100. Christopher Hazell7:50 PM

    I was with you up until here:

    They are about 60% there. What do you think, Christopher? No? These things aren't part of the conversation or haven't been tried?

    Because, well, it's just a fact that none of this:

    a. drastic reduction of both taxes and government spending;

    b. an end to deficit budgets;

    c. a halt to inflationary monetary policies;

    d. the removal of all governmental impediments to free trade; and

    e. the repeal of all controls on wages, prices, rents, profits, production, and interest rates.




    Actually has happened. Unless I slept through the abolition of the minimum wage or the dropping of sanctions on Iran.


    Gestures in those directions have happened, but they've been combined with a bunch of other things, including things that hardcore libertarians abhor, and specifically including the exact things that they would argue would completely bollocks up libertarian policies.


    I feel kind of weird that you included a big list of important libertarian things that have never been tried in the US because the rest of your post is pretty convincing.

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  101. ColBatGuano7:51 PM

    It's also the old U.S. system, until that devil bureaucracy put a stop to the habit of sending "bad" (or another word that starts with the letter "b") to remedial classes. They're too stupid to even recognize what the impetus for the regulations were.

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  102. Well, stymied I dunno, but it is still a major pain in the ass - and I fucking defy any of these right-wing yahoos to show even HALF of the kind of personal butt-sniffing you need to go through to even get food stamps. I mean, they even reserve the right to stop by your house and poke around if they want. You think any self-respecting libertarian would STAND for that? And yet...

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  103. parsec7:51 PM

    I can't remember who or in what publication but sometime in the Seventies one luminary said, "If you can't educate them, warehouse them."

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  104. Megalon7:55 PM

    He has all the self awareness he needs. He's aware of how to make himself a very comfortable living without ever having to do a day of real work.

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  105. I think the libertarian solution is warlords, and it's been tried.

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  106. Christopher Hazell8:02 PM

    Okay, so, it depends what you mean by "normal"; my dad works a freelance job that pays in the high five figures or low six figures, depending on what work he gets.


    Last year, the state of California decided he owed back taxes, and garnished a bit more than $30,000 from his wages. It took him forever to even find out why the money was missing and who took it, and then after that it took him about a year to prove that in that year California actually owed him a small refund.


    Cali gave back some of his money, but kept something like $6,000 to cover their own costs. The costs they incurred stealing his money.


    He doesn't live in California, he just sometimes works there, so he doesn't even have a representative in the state that he can contact, nor can he vote on their tax laws.


    Extremely Snarky Post-Script:


    How many normal individuals have ever been stymied by government bureaucracy?


    I don't know, let's ask Freddie Grey.

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  107. Jay B.8:26 PM

    Well, we have had a drastic reduction in taxes and very very few impediments to free trade and there is basically no control on profits at all. The budget deficit is a crock of shit, but we've suffered for 40 years now pretending it's a problem that necessitates slashing the safety net (when Democrats are in office).


    There is no more rent control and the interest rates payday loans and credit card companies can charge merit the word "usury".


    The bit about ending "Inflationary monetary policies" is the goldbug stupidity which HAS been tried and was manifestly a problem throughout the 19th Century when we suffered catastrophic depressions. That SOME American companies can't trade with Iran (directly) but can offshore millions of jobs isn't that titanic a burden for free trade in principle. And yes, the minimum wage exists. I'd still say 60% of those things have been tried or implemented on some level.

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  108. swkellogg8:32 PM

    Better -- this!

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  109. M. Krebs9:02 PM

    I remember when we called them "juvenile delinquents" and sent them to "reform school." It was mostly used as a tool to frighten and keep kids in line, but there were some degenerates who truly should have been prevented from bullying and otherwise fucking up the lives of the rest of us.

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  110. It was on the tip of my tongue.

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  111. Tehanu10:53 PM

    If teaching is so easy, and teachers are making much more than they would qualify for in the private sector, why aren't recent college graduates storming the barricades preventing them from getting credentials? Could it be that Murray -- once again -- is opining on something he not only knows nothing about, but is actively wrong about? Imagine that....

    I'd like to see Murray going mano-a-mano with my 7-year-old grandson in his first-grade classroom. He'd get his ass handed to him.

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  112. Tehanu10:59 PM

    Which has its middle finger stuck firmly up their asses, not that they even notice.

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  113. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person11:17 PM

    Upside down, and with crappy WiFi...

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  114. LA Julian11:26 PM

    No, that isn't what they were talking about. They meant the class clowns, the average kids who would rather be watching TV or playing games than reading, and the jocks -- everyone whose existence distracted the teachers from devoting every particle of their attention to the conservatives' Very Special Snowflakes during the day, thus depriving them of their full learning potential.

    The violent and incorrigible children who should have been prevented from bullying others would ideally be put in child labour camps, like in Dickens' time, if they were insufficiently wealthy. If they were the heirs of good families, then obviously they were the Future Leaders of the World who should be deferred to (see also Romney, Mitt) and it was your fault for being abused by getting in their way.



    (The idea that good teachers could motivate the class clowns and jocks and apathetic, by their teaching, and thus get them to the same point of studiousness as the Special Conservative Snowflakes, was obviously ridiculous. Everyone is born an Alpha, a Beta, or a Gamma, and nothing can change Nature!)

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  115. LA Julian11:27 PM

    Well, obviously bleeding heart liberalism and/or godless communism was to blame for the decline in schools from their day.

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  116. LA Julian11:28 PM

    I'm sure the Koch Brothers will include that in their next "Evolve Your Way Out Of Climate Change!" exhibit at the Smithsonian.

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  117. LA Julian11:29 PM

    Back in the good old days, a majority of people didn't die from cholera, so what is the problem?

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  118. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person11:39 PM

    They figure--rightly, I think--that if money can't buy them happiness, it can bloody well rent them some. Or a lot. In the zero-sum world of the super greedy, the fact that most people are miserably by comparison isn't a problem. Hell, it's supposed to be that way.

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  119. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person11:45 PM

    Wingnuts of all stripes go by the NRO version of Adam Smith Brainyquotes. It's easier, and less embare-ass-ing that a lot of stuff he really said.

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  120. JennOfArk11:50 PM

    "Show us on the doll where the Invisible Hand touched you."

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  121. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person11:56 PM

    Or Jimi and the Monkees...

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  122. AGoodQuestion12:11 AM

    "Teaching kids is a pretty simple thing," says Murray, but teachers for some reason want to keep disruptive children in their classrooms.
    It sure is simple, provided all you want to do is drive simple, dogmatic ideas into their heads through rote repetition. You know, kind of like how Murray prefers to do with adults as well. If you actually want to get them thinking and - whoa Nelly! - enthusiastic about learning, you might have to get creative.


    Such grim comedy results when Bourbons are talkin' 'bout a revolution.

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  123. AGoodQuestion12:15 AM

    Something tells me that in this version they hack at the wall, hose, tree trunk etc with machetes until the elephant bleeds out.

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  124. AGoodQuestion12:18 AM

    Madge heard about the lack of self-awareness, Jonah.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7BvEldVEHU

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  125. AGoodQuestion12:20 AM

    Oh, I think just telling him he looks like Trotsky could have much the same effect.

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  126. BadExampleMan12:31 AM

    I've always felt deep sympathy for the Daily Show interns who had to sit and watch FOX all day, mining the toxic slurry. As a good liberal, should I feel the same sympathy for NRO interns? Does watching, say, Jim Lehrer hurt their brains the same way Gretchen Carlson hurts mine?

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  127. AGoodQuestion12:36 AM

    I hope the Planet Express team "accidentally" drops them into a black hole.

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  128. AGoodQuestion12:38 AM

    Right? There's the guy above you pulling bread out of your mouth and someone else at your feet trying to catch the crumbs. Which one do you blame?

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  129. Wrangler12:50 AM

    Marx isn't supposed to give a blueprint, anymore than a thinker in the feudal age gave a blueprint for the age of capitalism that everyone subsequently followed. Socialism comes out of capitalism itself, not some dude's book. That's pretty much the definition of dialectical materialism.

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  130. JennOfArk3:02 AM

    Not to worry. Their brains are well-shielded by the unwarranted arrogance of knowing it all.

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  131. StringOnAStick3:35 AM

    Considering that something around half of newly elected members of the House of Representatives had never had a passport before entering office, I suspect they haven't got a clue about any aspect of our western European allies. Unless we're talking Maggie Thatcher, which sends them into a St. Ronnie orgasm.

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  132. montag23:37 AM

    [Shyly points to back pocket.]

    ReplyDelete
  133. StringOnAStick3:41 AM

    That was my first thought as well, but with more "fucks" and an "asshole" or two.

    ReplyDelete
  134. montag23:52 AM

    Reagan, Thatcher and orgasm in one sentence reminds of a certain Spitting Image sketch.

    ReplyDelete
  135. smut clyde4:06 AM

    Think of them as "Non-directive suggestions of magnitude".

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  136. smut clyde4:13 AM

    hard-headed evaluation
    I have been waiting for a long, long, long time for right-wing ideologues to explain why cranial sclerosis is a good thing.

    http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-u3eRbXJCrgU/U8BmJkYcD7I/AAAAAAAAPOY/BfFdmj74_TI/s1600/peak.PNG

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  137. montag25:13 AM

    Now that Murray is two decades further along to complete irrelevancy, who is it that is burnishing his tarnished badge of academic incompetence? None other than Der Grosser Teigiger Pantload, himself. There's a kind of sweet satisfaction in the realization that just when Doughy is hitting his stride as the most neuronally-challenged public intellectual since Wile E. Coyote, he's there to roll back turn over the rock on Charles Murray's resurrection.

    A great find, Roy. Real conservolib porridge, as ladled up by Bob and Ray.

    ReplyDelete
  138. smut clyde6:22 AM

    Ah, Lurulu.

    ReplyDelete
  139. Depends on how much respect one has for the social hierarchy, I guess.

    ReplyDelete
  140. How sadly true this is. I know a married couple who own a small business. When ACA came into effect, they both bitched about how it was a government takeover, blah, blah blah. And then purchased policies with the highest deductibles and lowest premiums.

    Within the next two years, both were diagnosed with cancer. And they were shocked to find that their insurance had high deductibles and poor coverage--for which they blamed Obama.

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  141. mgmonklewis8:04 AM

    The Idaho Barcaloungers totally sold out when they joined Lawrence Welk, man.

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  142. Which is one of the most extraordinary things about our current condition: The 1% has managed to get everyone below them to turn on each other.

    Where we once joined together in unions to demand fair pay and decent working conditions, we now work to disband unions and demand that other people have the same shitty pay and working conditions we suffer.

    Where once we worked to make sure that the rising tide lifted all our boats, we now drill holes in our neighbor's boat to make sure he doesn't rise higher than we do.

    And where we once imbued the wealthy with a sense that they great success meant a proportionate need to support the society that enabled them, we now work hard to make sure the wealthy are freed from any obligation toward society beyond siphoning off yet more money.

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  143. I heard they were actually pretty laid back.

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  144. I think it's even worse: many of them actually believe that shit.

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  145. Except that same deregulatory period also is a period where you still
    have enormous government subsidies and aid still coming to those
    corporations


    The idea that corporations will somehow be separated from their government subsidies is one of the goofier libertarian beliefs. Why would a corporation renounce guaranteed profit that it gets every year without having to do a single thing? It's just silly.

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  146. Helmut Monotreme8:49 AM

    Just like survivalists, they think that if they got to write the rules, they'd come out on top. Maybe 5% of survivalists and preppers would survive the end of civilization by more than a month. If libertarians had to survive in a libertarian society, in a month 95% of them would be impoverished or dead.

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  147. It IS extraordinary when you look at it that way, but few among the white working class do.

    We look out at society and see the weak getting stomped. Remember that old union song "Which Side Are You On?" Many working people these days would answer that question this way: "I'd much rather be on the side of the stomper. I want to associate myself with the winners, not the losers."



    I don't know how we change that. The Rightwing media machine is strong. Sure we laugh about it on blogs like these, but down here where I am, its message is almost invincible.


    It seems to me that change must occur in people's heads; that's the most important thing. Changes enacted through public policy like anti-discrimination laws and affirmative action are met with the fiercest resistance and anger, and is that any wonder? Hearts and minds must change first. I do what I can here and there.



    I reckon we ARE making a little progress, but it's a long, hard slog.

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  148. Agreed. I would add that we increasingly do live in a libertarian society. And, yes, a bunch of Americans - many of whom probably are libertarians - are impoverished.

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  149. The crazy part is that they're still arguing for "competing security companies" a.k.a. warlordism!
    https://mises.org/library/wouldnt-warlords-take-over

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  150. Because, well, it's just a fact that none of this:

    a. drastic reduction of both taxes and government spending;
    b. an end to deficit budgets;
    c. a halt to inflationary monetary policies.... etc.

    We have certainly never had inflationary monetary policies. The Federal Reserve has been aiming for a 2% annual inflation target for years, and actual measured inflation has been right around that for the past few decades.



    Also, taxes have in fact been drastically reduced for the wealthy, while they have remained or been raised for the rest of the people. While these points may not all have been done, they were pretty ridiculous points to begin with. The idea that the US would have ended its deficit budgets is absurd. The libertarians' allies the neoconservatives and the religious right would have had to stop their support for warfare, for only one thing, which is never going to happen.

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  151. One upvote isn't enough for this comment.

    ReplyDelete
  152. StringOnAStick9:16 AM

    Yes, and when the law eliminated those crap high deductible, poor coverage policies, the rethugs cried Market Interference because people could no longer purchase these worthless policies.

    I used to call that "hit by a bus" insurance in the 1990's when my first career hit the toilet and this was all I could afford. I was lucky to never need it, and now I realize it was PPP (Purely Psychological Protection, what my fellow rock climbers called a piece of gear that may or may not hold if you fall on it, but being there makes you feel a bit better so you place it anyway).

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  153. StringOnAStick9:29 AM

    I give the Scots credit for wanting to unhitch their governmental wagon from the newly elected Thatcher 2.0 Brits. Can it really be that the personality of the Labor PM was why they've opted for more austerity, good and hard? Christ, that's insane.

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  154. StringOnAStick9:31 AM

    I've had the joy of seeing one hardcore libertoonian renounce his market faith, all due to suddenly opening his eyes to how our heavily subsidized agriculture keeps 3rd world farmers from being able to compete fairly/survive.

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  155. swkellogg9:53 AM

    They said the same thing about Myron Floren.

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  156. That does indeed sound awesome!

    ReplyDelete
  157. "racism" and "government overreach" are somehow competing explanations for police brutality

    Both of them are certainly in the mix. But don't forget "profit".

    ReplyDelete
  158. The fucking CRUMB-CATCHER, the goddamn freeloading bastard.

    ReplyDelete
  159. Magatha11:02 AM

    Boy, were they lazy.

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  160. Okay, I know I'm behind the curve (I always am), but, "American Sniper", okay? On my way into Wal-Mart this morning to process some water, you might say, and I notice the goddamn thing's a movie already.

    Well! know I hate America by saying so, but idolizing one of the most cowardly aspects of war-fighting? The guy sits covered in camo, blowing off heads a mile away, and his goddamn job specification says he's got to stay away from being shot at himself. I guess the right wing has pushed military worship to the point where someone like that has to be our new hero, but what's next? Drone "pilots"? The guys in the nuclear missile silos? Isn't this awfully kind of like the celebration "the other side" does of its suicide bombers, except that, of course, the fucking bomber sacrifices himself while Sniper-boy looks at his watch and wonders what's for dinner tonight.

    All's I'm saying is we get our noses bent the fuck out of shape when it's done to us, but, you know, exceptionalism and all that.

    ReplyDelete
  161. billcinsd12:10 PM

    One of my favorite Trotsky Icepick songs

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zwk-mpJC_c

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  162. Then he gets to his signal example of intolerable bureaucracy, and if you guessed
    "military" or "housing court" you must be new around here.


    Always fascinates me the fetish the mil-wank libertarian crowd has for the military, considering it's, you know, THE BIGGEST FUCKING BUREAUCRACY in the goddamn government. Plus an authoritarian hierarchy. It's everything a Libertarian would love to hate if it weren't for the guns!

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  163. Helmut Monotreme12:40 PM

    This picture right here is the first time I've seen Jonah looking old. I don't like how red he looks in that picture, he looks like he just ran a mile, and he's just sitting there talking. He should exercise more and eat better, It would be terrible if he pulled a Breitbart.

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  164. Socialist Cubone1:24 PM

    "Teaching kids is a pretty simple thing," says Murray, but teachers for some reason want to keep disruptive children in their classrooms. No citation, but Murray assures us there are "six different school of education theories" about "why you should leave that chaotic child in the classroom."



    "Teaching is a pretty simple thing if you exclude the children who are difficult to teach," said the man who gets a six-figure book advance for his brilliant ideas and sharp observations.

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  165. Teachers! pfffft

    What do they know about teaching?

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  166. In a way they didn't opt for anything. It's only 37% of the UK electorate that actually voted for it, but the rest were all over the map. You do wonder how Labor would have done if they'd run a leftist campaign like the SNP did.

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  167. J Neo Marvin1:56 PM

    I try to avoid "looksism" but man, that is one smug pinhead.

    ReplyDelete
  168. StringOnAStick2:34 PM

    Sounds like the dreaded Tory/Republican-lite syndrome. Labor and the Democrats need to listen to someone other than the moneyed class.

    ReplyDelete
  169. billcinsd3:05 PM

    #amoremodestproposal

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  170. billcinsd3:17 PM

    well, as a liberal, leftist, communist, fascist, like Gale Sayers, I a third. I blame the rich guy first, then the black guy and I am third. But as Bob Dylan said everybody must get blamed

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  171. billcinsd3:18 PM

    "I'd much rather be on the side of the stomper. I want to associate myself with the winners, not the losers."I don't know how we change that.

    We stomp on a bunch of rich people until we are the champions, my friend

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  172. Ah, yes, Lawrence's main squeeze.

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  173. billcinsd3:26 PM

    sorry no. In libertarian world profit is a reward for the already rich, only

    ReplyDelete
  174. "Still, your knowledge of everything is a muddle, and your theories are bunk."

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  175. "I'm friends to the Monks Capitalists; they know me."

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  176. John Wesley Hardin5:19 PM

    Will we keep fighting, til the end?

    ReplyDelete
  177. Marion in Savannah5:37 PM

    They have branes? Who knew... I thought it was all kinda Lerner & Loewe in there — cotton, hay and rags.

    ReplyDelete
  178. JennOfArk7:22 PM

    Loved it! Thanks for posting.

    ReplyDelete
  179. AngryWarthogBreath8:54 PM

    Sadly, it turns out we'll only have an immortal pony.


    So, I mean, that's one reliable pony, but it doesn't help much.

    ReplyDelete
  180. AngryWarthogBreath8:57 PM

    But is it ableist to call them bitches?

    ReplyDelete
  181. tigrismus10:27 PM

    You can still only eat it once.

    ReplyDelete
  182. P Gustaf11:48 AM

    Indeed. Every time I read the comments on a local newspaper story involving unions, I'm shocked at the stupidity of people who are peeved that these union members have the temerity to threaten a strike when they're living better than the commenter. Rather than say, "hey, I'd like better benefits, too! Maybe I should demand more of my employer!" they get angry at those who have the stones to actually do it. Drives me nuts.

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  183. Matt Jones7:58 AM

    At this point, I assume that most of the people involved in AEI etc are actually wildly long on pitchfork and torch producers and figure that if they can just provoke a *little* resolution they'll make out like bandits.

    ReplyDelete