Epic Fail
Mark Steyn thinks he’s quite witty. To give credit where it’s due, he’s half right.
Above: analogy – you’re doing it wrong
Adventures in Analogy [Mark Steyn]
Alas, Dr Mohamed Elmasry, founder of the Canadian Islamic Congress, failed in his campaign to rid the Great White North of my hate speech, so he has now turned his attention to other targets — the Zionist stormtroopers:
Many contemporary historians have aptly compared Gaza to the cramped and destitute Warsaw Ghetto of World War II.
But those “contemporary historians” don’t know the half of it:
Gaza has, in fact, been reduced to a new Auschwitz: the only difference – a nightmarish irony — is that Jews are now playing the role of Hitler’s ruthless SS.
Er, right. And that would make Hamas the concentration camp guards?
(via The Montreal Muslim News. Proud motto: “We don’t support the troops.”)
Now, Mohammed Elmasry is hyperbolic here (which doesn’t necessarily make him wrong; it only makes him hyperbolic), and I haven’t the slightest bit of interest in weighing in on the Israel-Hamas situation. My New Year’s Resolution for Good Happy Success involves attempting to ignore most of the genuine evil in the world for a while so I can hopefully stop feeling like I should send a condolence card every time someone I know has a new baby. I just want to have some fun mocking Mark Steyn for the amazingly epic fail he’s just committed.
See, Steyn thinks that Elmasry’s position is inherently risible because, in order for Elmasry’s analogy to be properly extended, Hamas would have to be the concentration camp guards on its own people! And that’s ridiculous, right? Because that never happened, right?
Kapo was a term used for certain prisoners who worked inside Nazi concentration camps during World War II in various lower administrative positions. The term is sometimes used to describe self-hating Jews and Jewish anti-Semites.
The German word also means “foreman” and “non-commissioned officer”, and is derived from French for “Corporal” (fr:Caporal) or the Italian word capo’. Kapos received more privileges than normal prisoners, towards whom they were often brutal. They were often convicts who were offered this work in exchange for a reduced sentence or parole, however they were usually murdered and replaced with a new batch of prisoners at regular intervals.
My lord! So concentration camp prisoners were used as camp guards? Well, never mind, then.
Is it a good analogy? Is it a bad analogy? Who cares! It’s just nice to start the new year off with a reliable idiot like Mark Steyn confirming his idiocy for the whole world to see. Helps to restore my faith in the order of the universe a bit.
Happy New Year, y’all!
Wingnuts should not be allowed analogies until they know how to use them.
Just as babies are not trusted with the grape jelly until they have some maturity.
Well, actually, I took it that that is exactly what Mark Steyn meant–that Hamas was the kapos/jewish guards. But where the analogy fails is, of course, that Israel did, in fact, back Hamas against Fatah making Hamas, however difficult now, as much a creature of Israeli military power as the kapos were of nazi control.
aimai
aimai, you’re crediting Steyn with far too much intelligence.
He seems to be unaware the kapos existed at all.
I know, he really is a dreadful person. And happy new year to you, Jillian. I really enjoyed your long post a week or so ago.
aimai
Jillian said:
“My New Year’s Resolution for Good Happy Success involves attempting to ignore most of the genuine evil in the world for a while so I can hopefully stop feeling like I should send a condolence card every time someone I know has a new baby.”
First off, “Good Happy Success” is so totally my department’s new motto for ’09 (and would also be a fantastic name for a Japanese punk band), and, wow, that’s exactly how I think, too.
Many contemporary historians have aptly compared Gaza to the cramped and destitute Warsaw Ghetto of World War II.
I believe I just did so in HTML’s post below. I iz contemporary historian!
The depths of shrewd ore mined for the light hearted banter of the puckish Steyn were from a surface strip .
Looking at a mysterious rationale is different then say looking at self serving inflation of irrational constructions building a balance of hysterical disdain and a cozy keratin ignorance .
It is most of the time anyway
You don’t have to go that far back in time to find good examples. Dan the Magic Homo is more than halfway to kapo status now.
Leave it to Steyn, the kapo of the NR Cruise franchise. I knew it was only a matter of time before idiotic posts on Gaza started appearing here! Can they be stopped? Sadly, No!
Happy New Years! (to everyone other than Mark Steyn)
“To give credit where it’s due, he’s half right.”
Does that mean he’s a half-wit? Or a half of a half-wit?
I’m so glad that Steyn was born in Canada. If he was born here, I’d seriously have to consider changing my citizenship.
That’s not to say we don’t have assclowns afoot here in the US. Take Blago. There’s very little in politics more pathetic than a white man pulling the race card.
so steyn should just quit with the comedy, the analogy, the attempts of any kind at creativity and imagination — stick with the hatin’ mark!
it serves you so well.
We have disconnected cause and effect. There should be a penalty for being an asshat.
Beyond the lousy sex life, that is. (At least there’s that.) However, it just makes them meaner and more stupid.
We need an Asshat Recovery Problem. But of course, they have to first admit they are an Asshat.
I hate to be ‘that guy’, but… here’s another edition of “When I need / I look to…”
When I need insightful commentary and definitive perspective on the Israel / Palestine situation, I generally seek the opinion of a faux-American, Canadian dude with an internets connection, because if anybody can give me the straight skinny on a six-decades-long political-religious-cultural struggle, it’s… ah, fuck – you know where I’m going with this.
(Note to Steyn: Dude, you so totally understand this shit. Man….)
We need an Asshat Recovery
ProblemPROGRAM.But hey, I learned to use strikeout tags.
Why the hell does everything have to go back to Hitler, the Nazis and the death camps? Is it because they wore those fabulous uniforms?
I mean, come ON. The Germans of the mid 20th century did not invent concentration camps, genocide as a political tool, brutal occupations and collective punishment. I know people are just trying to point out the inherent evil, horror and ultimate futility in what the Israelis keep doing to now four generations of people who’s awful crime was nothing more than an accident of birth.
Look. “I’ll stop hitting you when you stop trying to make me stop hitting you” is the most disingenuous negotiating stance, and such a basic hard-wired human structure that in many cases we don’t even notice the structural unreasonableness built into the construct. “You can have your freedom when you stop fighting for your freedom” is just reducto stupido.
“We’ll negotiate your right to develop nuclear energy only when you agree you have no right to develop nuclear energy”. “We’ll stop assassinating your leaders when you start elevating leaders we approve of”. “We’ll withdraw our occupation forces only once you accept them on your soil”. It’s past time for people to recognize and identify this as nothing more than the taunts of a bully. You can only stake out a ludicrous position like this when you have the power to ignore demands for honesty and fair play.
And it is precisely under those circumstances of imbalance that a great power acts with the most compassion and restraint. Alas, in this foul year of our lord 2009, there are few, if any, great powers…
mikey
That Effie really knows her shit.
You should listen to her….
mikey
The fact is, you liberals HATE Jews and hate Israel and therefore hate Freedom, you support the marxist anti-humanity phillosophies of the Islamist Arabs, and will do anything to defend them including living as a dhimmi and even dyeing as one, you hate yourselves and USA so much.
I dyed as a dhimmi once. Cerulean, I think.
Also, I’m pretty sure most of the Marxists in the Middle East have been assassinated by America and its allies so no filthy commies would have oil. They don’t like us communists, man, they hated us before hating you was popular.
yea fer serious, he hasn’t seen The Pianist?
…also no more WWII analogies about anything ever, not even WWII.
Welcome back to the monkey-house!
If Steyn ever did have a clue it would surely die of loneliness. Nice to see he’s getting a head start on his nomination for “Guy Most Likely To Need Labels To Distinguish His Arsehole From His Elbow” … if they can make a day’s pay being wrong, wingnuts don’t want to be right – & the Mideast is a region they will NEVER get right, because the folks who pay for & support their bloviating habit require absolute ignorance.
As I recall, this is the same guy who was bawwwing about the evil swarthy hordes breeding us poor honkies into extinction a few years back – a wingnut favorite in the Cliche Sweepstakes since the days of McCarthy. Oddly, the originally predicted “wipeout” of whites by 2000 failed to materialize, much like the “Wounded Bear” sneak-attack on the US from Russia.
Those who do not remember the past are blessed with a knack for repeating it.
I usually tend to think of the Prudent Liberal Opposition as kapos.
How they will do now that they have been promoted to camp administration, we will have to see.
On behalf of Canada and everything Canadian (except Mark Steyn), I’d like to formally apologise for Mark Steyn. (Please tell me, is his middle name Wanck?)
I really do, however, think it’s quite amusing that he admits to being a purveyor of hate speech. Congratulations, Mark! Admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery! Maybe one of these days, you’ll be able to quit your hate speech addiction altogether.
The pessimist looks at Mark Steyn and thinks “The wit is half-empty”.
The optimist looks at Mark Steyn and turns into a pessimist.
Wikipedia v.6.03: Your brainy friend who’s fun to be with.
“During the late 20th and early21st centuires a type of conservative propagandist became prominent. This type of commentator (see Mark Steyn, Jonah Goldberg) held views so laughable and so reactionary that they stunted any growth in Conservative thinking and in fact actually lessened the levels of intellectualism in conservative circles. In this sense they could be seen as conservatives acting as prison guards on fellow conservatives and this coupled with the abject stupidity of their argun=ments lead to their nicknames of “The Krapos”.”
Class dismissed.
He’s quite?
Can someone photoshop a Grab a Heinie trucker hat on him.
Mark Steyn: Proof, if anyone ever needed it, that there is no such thing as meritocracy in the world of Big Media. And especially not on the right. Least of all among self-hating-Jews-turned-Catholics.
BTW, he’s not Canadian by birth; he’s a Brit. They can have him back anytime, we don’t want him.
And I remember him living in Vermont at some point.
Does he just go back to Canada to bitch about the country treating Muslims like human beings and him like a twat, or what?
Yeah, pretty much.
What can I say…we’re a very tolerant society. We put up with HIM, don’t we?
The same thing came to my mind when I read Steyn this time. Has he never heard of Kapos? (I thought it was spelled “Capo,” but – Sadly, No).
It used to exist in the US – think Cool Hand Luke. What were they called then? I googled for a bit and couldn’t find the word. Regents? Proctors? I remember the situation in the novel Shantaram as well. Anyone?
Kapo der tutti kapo.
It used to exist in the US – think Cool Hand Luke. What were they called then?
Trusties.