Hurrah, new snark, was beginning to think you’d all run away with the circus.

Jesus, why the fuck did I read Prager’s article?

How can one man be so damn boring?

I’ve met Jo Ann Castle, Mr. Prager, and you sir are no Jo Ann Castle. Put down the accordion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0xGC6KTc-c

(You’re especially not her here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngUMA_aKmak)

Christopher, I don’t think I’ve read any of the linked articles since McCain was a maverick – I can no longer bring myself to click, having been smacked in the face by Teh Stupid way too many times.

Candy and MzNicky, I have no idea how you folks on the continent stand it – I’m on the opposite side of the ferkin’ planet, and I’m hopping from foot to foot already. My worry is that the Repubs will pull some dodgy voting crap with their dodgy stupid machines and steal the election.

Actually, that’s worry #1. Worry #2 is that they’ll let the Big O win, then start the rioting they’ve been prepping for with all that “Democratic vote fraud” bullshit. Or just plain crazy anti-everything rioting, because their base seems to be several eskies*, a pile of sandwiches, 4 rugs, a case of beers, and an ant colony short of a picnic.

*Cultural note: just in case you don’t have the Esky over there, it’s an insulated portable carrying thing to stick your beer into when you go somewhere. No-one wants to be caught without their beer in this country.

Addendum: Ah am so tahred. How long can this go on?

I clicked through and tried reading the whole incoherent piece. No dice.

While Prager is a shitty writer, in keeping with clownhall standards, my trip wasn’t a complete waste – I won a $25 gift certificate to Applebee’s, and an invitation to visit my local DirectBuy showroom.

I call it a win/win.

Eating at Applebees is not a win.

I tried getting something snark-worthy out of that 500-odd words of insipid drivel, but no luck.

It’s like they’re not even trying anymore.

Eating at Applebees is not a win.

Unless you’re David Brooks, in which case it’s only a win if you’re not a fagocratic elitist too good for their salad bar, which exists in the hearts of all true Americans.

All those salad bar sneeze guards that aren’t protecting the lettuce at Applebees are are keeping True American keyboards safe from Palin- inspired half-babies.

Actually Denny, the left and the right in America do share one overwhelming problem.
Mendacious Pricks being allowed to continue lying their self-absorbed asses off on a National scale.
A little accountability as to who continues to get the megaphones would do wonders for much of the other divisions this country faces.

In other news from 2004, Arafat is dead and I don’t think Republicans are being respectful of Kerry’s service record.

Eating at Applebees is not a win.

It’s all a matter of perspective. I see it as a step up from IHOP.

*Cultural note: just in case you don’t have the Esky over there, it’s an insulated portable carrying thing to stick your beer into when you go somewhere.
Ah yes. The Esky:

The brown cardboard box is the Esky’s original packaging. It has an illustration on all sides of a red Esky, and a smiling child dressed as an Eskimo, along with the musical slogan ‘Take the party with you’

In NZ, we eschew these crude stereotypes, because we have more concern for political soundness. Indeed, our respect for indigenous cultures leads us to avoid the word “Eskimo” altogether, especially in the form of a disrespectful abbreviation.

We used to keep our cold beer in “Inuys”, but talking about “taking an ennui to a party” does not sound so good unless you are an emo kid, so now we call them “chilly-bins” instead — which is longer but self-descriptive.

Dubious anecdotes and work camps for everyone!

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Y2E3Yzk5M2Q4YjAyOTg4MWE5ZjMxZjM2MDZkMDMyNGE=

Yeah,there are two irreconcilable Americas alright. That might be because one side keeps trying like hell to forment violence,hatred and mistrust towards the other side. Constantly. It’s coming directly from their vice presidential candidate right NOW for fuck’s sake.

I am SO sick of this pack of morons fucking up everything they touch because they don’t want the rest of us to have nice things. And they ARE why we can’t have nice things. The big diff,IMO,between conservative and liberal is that liberals generally don’t let their far left crazies run every fucking thing and run amok hurting as many people as possible. That they really think our Scary Black Presidential Candidate is a “far leftist” is insane and a salute to how fucking stupid the wingnuts are.

The Swankstah is speaking in tongues again:
Muslim rule will ensue if becoming President. It will be quite convenient for Muslim B. Hussein then to stay in line with the Koran for George W. Bush was foolish enough to place that volume in the White House library during a Ramadan dinner where guests were Muslim leaders.

http://truthinconviction.us/weblog.php

I’m gonna spank Swankstah’s ass until it’s bright red.

Eating at Applebees is not a win.

It’s all a matter of perspective. I see it as a step up from IHOP.

Not until Applebees has boysenberry syrup.

Dubious anecdotes and work camps for everyone!

My brother’s best friend’s father-in-law’s second cousin’s housemaid’s sister’s husband, a non-political, non-partisan sort of guy who definitely does exist, told me that Jay Nordlinger regularly felches monkeys after drinking liquid LSD out of a caucasian baby skull.

“The left is ambivalent about and often hostile to overt displays of American patriotism. That is why, for example, one is far more likely to find American flags displayed in Orange County, Calif., on national holidays than in liberal neighborhoods in West Los Angeles, Manhattan or San Francisco.”

Or maybe, it’s that homes in Orange County have porches while homes in West L.A., Manhattan, and San Francisco tend to be small apartments with very little storage space to keep a flag that’s going to be hard to display properly anyhow.

But it was nice of him to acknowledge the existence of ambivalence toward the flag. I guess instances of flag burning by rampaging liberals just weren’t easy enough to find on YouTube for him, so he had to go with “ambivalent” to go along with his gut-self-checked “often hostile.”

And this bullshit about Obama being the most liberal member of the Senate has got to be countered. We need an alleged thinktank to come up with the right criteria to name McCain the Most Somethingest Senator. My category choices: Grumpy, Bullshitty, Unhingedy, and Reckless.

Still, the worst part was that he says he’s just realized the left exists. It’s almost as if he’s never read anything the left has written or said, and the level of self-unawareness it takes to admit that is absolutely astounding. But it was nice of him to show that the right is absolutely against egalitarianism, provided it gets capitalized to become scary. What the fuck is wrong with egalitarianism?

We sure do learn about our foes when they’re being defeated, but at least I knew most of what they stood for and why they needed to be swept under the rugs. I eagerly await Prager’s next opus, “Some Americans Aren’t White: Problem or Political Opportunity?”

It’s like they’re not even trying anymore.

Well, it is getting more difficult. They care about winning, not if something works, or not.

Reality always wins.

The right walks like this. The left walks like this.

A little accountability as to who continues to get the megaphones would do wonders

I thought that was what the tar and feathers were for.

I’m not actually going to rtfa, but it sounds like he’s trying to scare the unsure off of hanging out with those other kids. You know. “If you go and vote for that sort, just once, you’ll be one of them ferever. Since they are soooooo different than us, and you’ll be one of ’em, you can never come up to our tree-house again, no matter what. Really. We won’t ask you back next election after we win, ‘n everything.”

Kind of sad, I suppose. All they know to do when more of the fringes of their flock are telling them to pound sand is ratchet up the division even more.

It is reconcilable if the Republican party is reduced in size until it can be drowned in a bathtub. Then, presto! Reconciliation.

That this whole Left/Right bullshit continues without being very publicly and loudly called into question is pretty amazing and annoying to me. My basic political principles haven’t changed much in forty years. Back in the day, my student peers viewed me as being a suspect center-right moderate “conservative”. But nowadays, according to the accepted characterizations of the MSM, those same principles define me as a complete fookin’ looney Lefty fringe-dwelling anti-American.

The other day, while walking the dogs down to the mailbox, my next door neighbor – a genuinely nice guy whose driveway is festooned with about a dozen signs supporting Republicans – asked me about the Obama sign I have at the foot of my drive and why I was supporting him. “I’d rather have a competent pragmatic conservative in the White House than a bumbling radical extremist,” sez me. The sound of his brain beginning to melt down was loud enough to make the dogs run back up toward the house.

The right walks like this. The left walks like this.

As far as I can tell, the “Right” consists of those who walk with their knuckles dragging the ground. The “Left” consists of everyone else – those who dare to walk upright.

The left fears nationalism in general (this has been true for the European left since World War I)

It’s a good thing we didn’t listen to those lefties after World War I!

The left wants a world — and therefore an America — devoid of nuclear weapons. The right wants America to have the best nuclear weapons.

You! Boy! My nuclear weapon needs a shine.

The left wants a world — and therefore an America — devoid of nuclear weapons.

Hey, St. Ronnie Reagan was a leftist, who knew?

The left and the right in America are philosophically opposed on many issues. Moreover, contention between the two sides will result in a winner and a loser.

“In other news worthy of my bloviation, I discovered that cats and dogs do not always see eye to eye, and hurricanes sometimes occur in the summer!”

Even shorter:
“The left isn’t really America so they should all STFU and move to Europe.”

That is why, for example, one is far more likely to find American flags displayed in Orange County, Calif., on national holidays than in liberal neighborhoods in West Los Angeles, Manhattan or San Francisco.”

In 2004 I made a point of counting all the American flags I saw on my commute to work in West LA. I’ll have to do that again.

When played appropriately, the accordion is the bedrock of American civilization.

My basic political principles haven’t changed much in forty years. Back in the day, my student peers viewed me as being a suspect center-right moderate “conservative”. But nowadays, according to the accepted characterizations of the MSM, those same principles define me as a complete fookin’ looney Lefty fringe-dwelling anti-American.

Hell, the same thing happened to me in *fifteen* years. My views were considered center-rightish when I was in college–I wasn’t conservative enough to join the campus Republicans (who were nutty social conservatives) but wasn’t anywhere near what passed for the Left at the time. My views haven’t changed much, but now I’m somewhere in the neighborhood of Barack Obama, who is of course somewhere to the left of Marx and Engels. It’s bizarre. I assume it’ll swing back eventually and I’ll be a “rightist” again, but for the moment, here I am.

When played appropriately, the accordion is the bedrock of American civilization.

Indeed.

I’m not American, but I’m so far left, Barack Obama looks like another Clintonesque Republican. (Clinton was the best Republican President of my lifetime to date; too bad he ran and won as a Democrat.) As near as I can tell, the US doesn’t really have any significant political left; self-identified American liberals are centrists from where I’m sitting. Your right-wingers are just nutteh. We out here in the wild have to keep an eye on them, though, because there are lots and lots of people working very hard to export US-style nutty right-wingism everywhere — and here you thought you only imported stuff anymore…

How does that eagle fly with two right wings, anyway?

As near as I can tell, the US doesn’t really have any significant political left; self-identified American liberals are centrists from where I’m sitting.

Jon Stewart said it better when he said Canada’s conservative party would be the equivalent of the “Gay Nader Fans For Peace” party.

As far as I can tell, the “Right” consists of those who walk with their knuckles dragging the ground. The “Left” consists of everyone else – those who dare to walk upright.

Damn liberals and their “pelvises”…

Well, just to demonstrate the benefits of the Shorter, I’m going to start in on a serious fisking of Dennis. We’ll see how long I last before I have to skip to the end…

It is time to confront the unhappy fact about our country: There are now two Americas. Not a rich one and a poor one; economic status plays little role in this division.

There is a red one and a blue one.

So insightful, such a new previously unobserved phenomenon!

For most of my life I have believed, in what I now regard as wishful thinking, that the right and left wings have essentially the same vision for America, that it’s only about ways to get there in which the two sides differ. Right and left share the same ends, I thought.
That is not the case. For the most part, right and left differ in their visions of America and that is why they differ on policies.

This is why I like to accuse liberals of trying to ruin the country while I think up excuses why I don’t have a Pulitzer and fantasize about teenaged girls.

The left wants America to look as much like Western European countries as possible. The left wants Europe’s quasi-pacifism, cradle-to-grave socialism, egalitarianism and secularism in America. The right wants none of those values to dominate America.

Indeed, such outdated European ideals such as habeas corpus have no place in conservativism. WTF is quasi-pacifism? Opposing illegal and unjust wars? Well, that’s a horrible position to take. Speaking of cradle-to-grave ‘socialism’ Prager might want to think about what his totalitarian Christianist society means for peoples individuality from cradle-to-grave.

The left wants America not only to have a secular government, but to have a secular society. The left feels that if people want to be religious, they should do so at home and in their houses of prayer, but never try to inject their religious values into society. The right wants America to continue to be what it has always been — a Judeo-Christian society with a largely secular government (that is not indifferent to religion). These opposing visions explain, for example, their opposite views concerning nondenominational prayer in school.

Holy humping Hey-Zeus of the horny hillbillies. Fucking freedom from theocracy is NOT A BAD THING. If he really believes in this – well injunctions from consumption of pork is Judeo, so I guess Prager would support a law banning bacon and ham. FUCK. Maybe mandatory bris and bar mitzvahs before you’re allowed to vote, after all in a Judeo-Christian nation, we wouldn’t want ignorant folks who can’t even read Hebrew to have the vote.

The left therefore regards the notion of American exceptionalism as chauvinism; the United Nations and world opinion are regarded as better arbiters of what is good than is America. The right has a low opinion of the U.N.’s moral compass and of world opinion, both of which it sees as having a much poorer record of stopping genocide and other evils than America has.

First Palin, and now the rest of the nuts. Are they actually trying to reclaim ‘exceptionalism’? Are they actually saying ‘it’s right when we do it’ is valid justification? I don’t know where to begin taking this apart – it is just so very wrong. Well, I guess we just found the point where I get fed up. And I haven’t even made it to “O NOES TEH GHEY” or “Equality is bad”.

I’m not American, but I’m so far left, Barack Obama looks like another Clintonesque Republican.

He basically is. Obama’s a pragmatic centrist. His foreign-policy statements have become increasingly hawkish. He’s in favor of not-quite-universal health care because he sees that the employer based insurance system we have is made of fail, not because he’s got some ideological preference for what the right here chooses to call “socialism.”

I think this election finally forced the conservatives to overplay their hand – calling a guy like Obama a socialist (if only!) is just transparently wrong. He’s basically what a reaonable Republican would look like if we had any left – that’s partly why self-described Rockefeller Republican Colin Powell endorsed him.

I trace the problems of timid liberalism to the two party system.

In a country where there can be factions and proportionate representation, all voices on the political spectrum can be heard.

In a society like ours, winner take all, the two party system is a guarantee (sorry, Naderites. Go Google “Duverger’s Law” if you don’t believe me).

By definition, that’s going to moderate extremist positions.

I’m a self-described liberal. What I want from this country and what the system is likely to give to me are two very different things:

I want univeral health care, single payer. I want universal college education, government pays. I want CAFE standards so high that my bicycle would have a hard time qualifying. I’m willing to pay taxes sufficient to see all those come to fruition. I want my government to be afraid of its citizenry and not the other way around.

And so on. But let’s be realistic: we can only nudge a little at a time.

So I pick my battles as I best see fit.

I clicked the link on this one and before the page loaded the title came up and it “Dennis Prager: America decides what Keith Ellison takes his oath on”

And I just had to close it right there; nothing good could have come from me reading that blog.

Right and left share the same ends, I thought.

Getting into & maintaining their place in political power, trying to be popular, making connections to increase said power, advancing their agenda while discrediting that of their opponents – yup, those are sure ends both seek.

Then he has to go & fuck it up with the “I thought” part, though … I don’t think “thought” means what he “thinks” it does.

How much “thought” went into:

?

Is he cribbing straight out of agitprop from the Shining Path here or what? This guy isn’t a thinker: he’s a wingnut-textbot-Eightball, & someone needs to stop shaking him! He’s wasting precious paragraphs on distilled dingo-shit masquerading as elder wisdom. Take away his goddamned adjectives until he gets an upgrade!

fauxmaxbaer said,

It is reconcilable if the Republican party is reduced in size until it can be drowned in a bathtub. Then, presto! Reconciliation.

As I recall, much can be said for the practice of neutering/castration in order to calm down the remaining members.

MaineMan.

My basic political principles haven’t changed much in forty years. Back in the day, my student peers viewed me as being a suspect center-right moderate “conservative”. But nowadays, according to the accepted characterizations of the MSM, those same principles define me as a complete fookin’ looney Lefty fringe-dwelling anti-American.

You and Justice Stevens both. Bless his arterial integrity for at least another three months.

All this Red-shit, Blue-shit rammed down our throats is just fucking absurd. Sometimes it seems that I’m the only one that remembers this to be a recent phenomena. Before 2000, each network fairly arbitrarily selected red and blue for each side. Some would have Republicans red, some blue. All of a sudden, half the country’s Red, with a capital R, and half the country’s Blue. If there has ever been a huge signal that we need to go RICO on our media outlets, this was it.

#

TLAD said,

The right walks like this. The left walks like this.

It’s funny, ’cause it’s true.

There hasn’t been a real, working Left in this country since the New Deal. These righties are always ranting about the evil New Deal. They’re so fucking stupid they don’t realize the ND was probably the only thing that saved the Prescott Bushes of this world from the fracking guillotine or some other equivalent.

My grandparents were married in October of 1929. They were pretty hard core populist/labor supporters. They tried to farm some pretty shitty land in the early 30s, plowing by horse, no electricity, no running water. This was dust bowl days, temps in the 100s day after day. My grandma had a baby die in utero during this time, and nearly died herself with only sulfa for antibiotics. Times were rough, people weren’t in the mood to fuck around. If Roosevelt hadn’t come along with the ND, and if my gramps hadn’t landed a good, safe federal job with the railway mail service, my grandparents were always quite sure they would have been in the front ranks of some sort of serious revolutionary movement.

I come from an actual leftist family tradition. My uncle occasionally votes for socialist candidates, and I’m getting ready to vote for the socialist candidate over blue dog Democrat Leonard Boswell in this election. (Though I wouldn’t do it if Boswell’s seat wasn’t completely safe.) I know I’m never going to get what I want, politically. But having said that, by way of comparison to what we’ve had for most of my life, Obama looks damned good. I’m pleased to vote for him, even if the FISA thing enraged me and even though his health care plan doesn’t come close to being what I want or what I believe we need. But as for Obama being a lefty, that’s just crazy talk. Personally, I can count on one hand the fellow socialists I’ve met over the years. Mr. Prager, Obama ain’t a socialist or anything close to it, and you can take it from me, an admitted socialist* , your worst nightmare.

*Philosophically, I’m probably closest to being an anarcho-syndicalist, but I’d settle for some Western European style socialism with pleasure, Mr. Prager.

Shorter Prager: Unfortunately, Mr. Prager is out sick this week. Please enjoy the following column automatically generated from right wing talking points: The left wants socialism… Western European… radical far left left radical blah blah blah.

The big diff, IMO, between conservative and liberal is that liberals generally don’t let their far left crazies run every fucking thing and run amok hurting as many people as possible.

Bingo!

The left feels that if people want to be religious, they should do so at home and in their houses of prayer….

Unlike Jesus, who encouraged people to pray loudly in the streets so that others might admire their religiosity.

Oh wait.

Moreover, contention between the two sides will result in a winner and a loser.

….and a “looser”. Get it right.

Kilo said, Dubious anecdotes and work camps for everyone!

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Y2E3Yzk5M2Q4YjAyOTg4MWE5ZjMxZjM2MDZkMDMyNGE=

Tonight on Medusa, Voter Activist!

Actually, I find that to be a highly plausible anecdote. I can certainly imagine that Mr. Nordlinger’s friends are right-wing paranoid lunatics convinced that the liberal coffee shop girl is putting ground glass in their lattes, excuse me, black coffees.

I, for one, am terrified of being sent to camp to be glared at by trained liberal torturers. I hear that if you cross the camp guards, they take you away, and then loudly snort whenever you try to say something.

I find the anecdote plausible as well. Many people who volunteer for one of our major parties believe that the other party’s supporters are screwed-up people (needless to say, it goes both ways), and some people are bad at dealing with those they see as screwed-up people.

Of course it takes a heaping helping of paranoid self-importance and unawareness to go from that to “ZOMG teh evil Democrat overlords will round up all registered Republicans to toil in their underground chardonnay caves!1!!”.

These opposing visions explain, for example, their opposite views concerning nondenominational prayer in school.

There’s no such thing as “nondenominational prayer”. Christians can’t even agree on whether they should ask for debts or trespasses to be forgiven, and that one came from the Big Guy himself.

Now here’s a nondenominational prayer, from Roger Zelazny’s Creatures of Light and Darkness:

Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything you may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness. Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to insure any possible benefit for which you may be eligible after the destruction of your body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure your receiving said benefit. I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your receiving as much as it is possible for you to receive of this thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen.

I hear that if you cross the camp guards, they take you away, and then loudly snort whenever you try to say something.

I think that’s in the hipster-run camps, which are pretty apolitical.

Fry: So, that’s my story, Father Changstein el Gamal. Is there anything religion can do to help me find my friend?

Father Changstein el Gamal: Well, we could join together in prayer.

Fry: Uh huh. But is there anything useful we could do?

Father Changstein el Gamal: No.

You are “free” to “leave” the hipster-run “camp” at any time, “friend”.

Arby’s Macht Fries.

The Chilly Bin vs Esky wars are terrible. Can’t we all just get along. I realise that as leftists we want to kill and eat babies most of the day but surely we can keep things cool, in harmony?

I’m sure there were many Australian lefties who bought their Esky, took it home, unpacked it, and were disappointed to discover that despite the picture on the packaging, it did not contain a small child in Inuit costume.

Oh cruel advertising industry to harshly dash the hope of a few tinnies and an Eskimo pie.