I worry that “socialist” within five words of “Barack Obama” has become code language for belief in various popular far-right conspiracy theories.

A not-unjustified fear and don’t look now, but there’s only four words between “socialist” and “Barack Obama” in your worry, you Trilateralist!

By what standard is government ownership of 72% of a company less than “true” socialism?

Because a) it’s not permanent ownership, b) Bush the Elder did it once for Chrysler AND the S&Ls, and not much complaining happened back then and look, we made all that bailout money back and then some!, and c) you’re a fucking loon.

A question which has been plaguing me lately is whether it is possible to have a legitimate debate over socialism without sounding like a rabid, hysterical, over-the-top, far-right conspiracy theorist.

I suggest a book-length thoughtful argument made with detail and care.

Oy. Or Oi!

“Classical Values.” I’d forgotten that train wreck.

The “Jiggle of the Love Handles” Awards are great every yr.!!

Any ideas?

Lock yourself in the shed in your backyard and blast Glen Beck’s radio program on high volume for a day. Then turn the volume up and blast an Atlas Shrugged audio recording for the next 24 hours. Repeat for a week.

You’ll stop feeling like a kook.

I suggest a book-length thoughtful argument made with detail and care

You’d probably want to give it an eye-catching title, and to make sure it was inclusive, perhaps invite liberals to the party by highlighting them on the cover.

Something like “Liberal Socialism: How Government Is Good” or something along those lines.

The U.S. government has held ownership interests in corporations going back to the First Bank of the United States in 1791 and continuing through the Tennessee Valley Authority, Conrail, and, to this very day, Amtrak without these whack-a-doodle dandies obsessively yanking the Chatty-Cathy-strings attached to their throats that makes them gurgle out the s-word.

Um, yeah they did. Do a google search for “Liberty League.” That’s what’s so fun about the “Obama is teh socialist!” meme; it’s so retro. I feel like next time I go to the movies they’ll start off with a Bugs Bunny cartoon about buying war bonds.

Goldberg’s post is two words long. Don’t exhaust yourself, Jonah. Does he get paid for that gig?

This post amuses me greatly. Gingrich was on Jon Stewart the other day accusing Obama of being the most socialist president ever. I was pissed of that Stewart let it go by without pointing out that Obama is economically to the right of Nixon, and will have to hike taxes a great deal to be taxing as much as Eisenhower, but I am comforted now to have official confirmation that Gingrich is “rabid, hysterical, over-the-top, far-right conspiracy theorist”.

You know, it is socialism, in a narrow definitional sense, but the bigger question is “so fucking what?”

This is sophistry in action. He’s trying to find a reasonable way to work the properly defined economic term “socialism” into the description of Obama, so that the raving lunatics can use it in the more common parlance “Stalin banning organized religion and massacring the Cossacks…” sort of way.

That’s why we think you’re crazy. Because you can’t see any difference between Sweden and the Khmer Rouge.

A question which has been plaguing me lately is whether it is possible to have a legitimate debate over socialism without sounding like a rabid, hysterical, over-the-top, far-right conspiracy theorist.

I’m thinking no.

Any ideas?

I’ve heard that fistfuls of Haldol and Klonopin in varying ratios can do wonders for that.

The “Jiggle of the Love Handles” Awards are great every yr.!!

Well, you have to, otherwise, they’ll run all night.

TinTin, apparently Eric noticed you linked to him:

AFTERTHOUGHT: Yes, I should have titled this post “I AM NOT A KOOK!”

Too late for that.

No link back, however.

You know, it is socialism, in a narrow definitional sense,

It’s socialism like the polio vaccine is attempted murder, which is to say “sure, if your day job involves talking out your ass”.

Seriously, though, socialism has a specific meaning. What we’re looking at here is state involvement in a bankruptcy which has an enormous impact on the economy. It’s not even as if they’re doing the smart Keynes-era thing and putting GM under a quasi-public charter wherein it is their job to produce affordable cars in America at a loss subsidized by taxpayers. (You know, like it was before, except we don’t pay executives billions of dollars to call them butch names.)

If you cannot on command actually offer a coherent definition of ‘socialism’ as an economic practice, you’re not an intellectual but a classicist wanker. It’s not even the kind of odious fraud involved in (say) presenting the homosocial slave-owning petty knights of the Spartan metajunta as brave, lonesome defenders of democracy and heterosexuality against the Asiatic menace of quasi-feudal Persia – it’s not rooted in any defensible academic tradition, it’s not useful for any crude historical or moral instruction, and it’s not possible to tell a coherent if inaccurate story about.

You know, I can’t fucking believe I’m saying this, but you’re right – he is worse than Victor Davis Hanson, the cuntfucker.

OT, but Jesus Wristwatch-Crisco Christ, here we go.

I may regret asking this, but has there been a link cited ANYWHERE for that all-privately-owned-guns-should-be-illegal thing?

I suggest a book-length thoughtful argument made with detail and care.

The old, white CEO of a Fortune 1000 company is the gulag prisoner of Liberal Socialism.

Kelp,

Sotomayor Hostile to Gun Rights, Scholar Says

Wednesday, May 27, 2009 1:04 AM

Federal appeals court Judge Sonia Sotomayor has over the years developed what some experts are calling a ‘troubling’ record on Second Amendment issues.

In January, President Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court joined an opinion, Maloney v. Cuomo, that ruled that the Second Amendment does not apply against state and local governments, according to Reason magazine.

The case dealt with a New York ban on various weapons, including nunchucks. After last year’s District of Columbia v. Heller, which struck down DC’s handgun ban, attention turned to whether state and local gun control laws might violate the Second Amendment as well.

“It is settled law,” Sotomayor and the Second Circuit held, “that the Second Amendment applies only to limitations the federal government seeks to impose on this right.”

But that Second Circuit ruling ran counter to a Ninth Circuit decision last month in Nordyke v. King, which upheld the Second Amendment as a deeply held right embodied in the Constitution that transcends state law.

via Newsmax. Now excuse me while I go douche my brain.

I get the notion that these people think that if you showed the modern U.S. economy to Karl Marx, he’d snigger and rub his hands together and laugh at how the Bolsheviks had taken over.

In reality, most might suggest Marx might have meant a big more than partial government ownership of large firms carried out in the interests of capitalists.

I think he has to realize that flying to New York is self-indulgent. Go down to the corner bar and have a drink, a shot and a beer.

I am sick to death of this creepy feeling that I can’t talk about Protocols of the Elders of Zion without sounding like a kook.

Cid,

Good point.

What part of “means of production belonging to the proletariat” is unclear to these assholes?

Not the rich and CERTAINLY not the government. The people who actually do the labor.

This man, George Tiller, was far greater in his atrocities than Adolf Hitler.

I am sick to death of this creepy feeling that I can’t talk about Erich von Daniken without sounding like a kook.

Um.

He’s kind of completely right. “Socialism” is a very loaded word, and while we are indeed moving our country towards a more socialist system, socialism is in fact a perfectly legitimate ideology, especially in a moderate form. But since the USSR was called “socialist”, and the USSR was clearly evil, socialism is clearly evil. Socialism is the enemy, people say.

The truth is that one can have a legitimate debate about socialism without sounding like a kook only if the word isn’t used to instill fear. “Barack Obama is a SOCIALIST!!!1” is stupid name-calling, but assuming that the public doesn’t have any associations with the word and just regards socialism as a particular and potentially valid approach to an economic system, suggesting that some of the current or future or desired policies are socialist is perfectly fine. Except that the public DOES have those associations. So we can’t have this debate unless we come up with a new technical term for it free from the connotations, or unless we work to erase those connotations. We have a Socialist senator already, so maybe this debate can take place in Vermont, where people are apparently more enlightened.

The thing is “but that’s tantamount to socialism!” shouldn’t be a good excuse without some discussion of why this particular form of socialism is good or bad.

The fact is, Obama is a Stalinist, not a socialist.

Seriously, I say that on my show.

Von Däniken is far more credible. Wackadoodle conspiracy theories about ancient astronauts merely lack evidence, instead of contradicting absolutely everything that one can observe right now.

Favorite part of the Sotomayor proceedings: G. Gordon Liddy calling her an illegal immigrant.

I’m really hoping we hear more of that. ‘Illegal’ is accepted far too readily at face value where in reality it’s just a dumb ethnic slur meaning little else outside of bureaucracy, and it’s doubly funny when used against someone who is a fucking Puerto Rican.

Also, that’s about the stupdiest argument I’ve ever heard. One, no Amendment is a ‘deeply held right’ or ‘transcends’ any law. It would no doubt surprise any even marginal student of law to learn that certain amendments trumped state power from the word go: that’s the entire fucking point of the 14th Amendment! But the Originalist mythology requires that the founding fathers intended that the state governments be required to allow their citizens to own assault rifles, but nunna this Jew nonsense about nativity creches – so the 14th Amendment doesn’t count. (And when they can get away with it, they quietly lump it in with the brusque Yankee violation of Southern womanhood, too.) The Second Amendment was handed down by Jesus on Mount Sinai in King James English.

And two? Even if that were so, guess what: it isn’t your job to uphold the federal constitution at that level. I mean, it is, but that’s why you have reversals and why, in fact, we have a Supreme Court at all: because it’s the lower justices’ job to keep local laws coherent with the local constitution, even if that means making decisions which potentially or obviously fly in the face of the Constitution. Suggesting otherwise is as sleazy as characterizing public defenders as accomplices to murder.

“…the cuntfucker.”

Wait…that’s an insult?

“upheld the Second Amendment as a deeply held right embodied in the Constitution that transcends state law.”

Oh…so states’ rights only apply when the feds are doing something you don’t want them to do then? That’s consistent.

Hey, it’s Mauro.

Haven’t heard from him much since he declared Obama’s candidacy kaput in late summer, ’cause Barack shudda picked Hillary as his running mate homina homina.

All we need now is Iris.

I worry that “socialist” within five words of “Barack Obama” has become code language for belief in various popular far-right conspiracy theories.

Just as “Republican” within twenty leagues of one’s name indicates that you’re a whiny old racist who gets off on torture.

This moral clarity thing is so liberating.

He’s kind of completely right. “Socialism” is a very loaded word, and while we are indeed moving our country towards a more socialist system, socialism is in fact a perfectly legitimate ideology, especially in a moderate form.

As a socialist I kind of have to dispute that. Until we’ve successfully entered a point where the functional form of capitalism – Keynesian macroeconomics – is no longer a political bone of contention among anyone who isn’t being paid to lie, what Americans think of when they think of ‘socialism’ will have little to nothing to do with it.

For that matter, there’s little to no connection between our capitalism and Europe’s. Even the most extreme liberalizing regimes don’t put most of the tax burden for basic welfare on the poor, selectively deregulate and manage state assets such that the richest people in the country get richer, and consider CEO pay sacrosanct. The only equivalent of the US in the parts of Europe we didn’t directly ass-fuck in the post-Soviet period is Italy, and it’s being run by an imperial lunatic whose goals in power mainly consist of avoiding criminal charges, fucking underaged girls, and fighting the Finnish menace.

The movement you’re identifying as ‘towards socialism’ is towards market capitalism and away from kleptocracy. It’s a marginal improvement, but we’re at best no longer plummeting into Fourth World hellhole status.

Incidentally, while we’re on the subject of Europe, what in the fuck is wrong with it:

On 18 November 2008, Berlusconi played “hide-and-seek” with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He was set to receive Merkel but opted to hide behind a column while Merkel and her entourage walked by. According to reporters present, Berlusconi called out “coo coo”, prompting Mrs Merkel to turn around, saying “Oh, Silvio”.

“It is settled law,” Sotomayor and the Second Circuit held, “that the Second Amendment applies only to limitations the federal government seeks to impose on this right.”

But that Second Circuit ruling ran counter to a Ninth Circuit decision last month in Nordyke v. King, which upheld the Second Amendment as a deeply held right embodied in the Constitution that transcends state law.

THAT’S BECAUSE THE 2ND AMENDMENT HAS BEEN INCORPORATED AGAINST THE STATES IN THE NINTH CIRCUIT AND NOWHERE ELSE

So the rulings don’t “run counter,” it’s just that she knows the law and that rightard doesn’t.

I am sick to death of the creepy feeling that I’ll be labeled as a kook if I discuss Bigfoot, the Yeti, or Nessie.

THE BUTTOCKS are central to my fears.

Great comments over there!

“When will non liberals stop allowing the liberal to define them.”

followed IMMEDIATELY by:

“Obama is a socialist. He’s proven that with his words and his actions.”

fighting the Finnish menace

We have our eyes on the IIHL trophy, dammit! First hockey, den ze vorld!

Wait…that’s an insult?

I use it as a parallel to ‘cocksucker’ to imply someone who engages in joyless, mechanical sex for personal advantage. While fucking cunts and sucking cocks is perfectly admirable as a diversion, hobby, or vocation, make a career out of it and you’re one major corporate sponsor away from a Senate seat in Real America.

So is his question can ONE discuss socialism without sounding like a kook, or is it can HE discuss &c., because I’m thinking those might not have the same answer.

I do, however, encourage the Republicans and the right to scream at any shadow person spotted out of the corner of their eye as “SOCIALIST!!!” so that the word will begin to take on the innocuous tones of “COMMUNITY ORGANIZER” which won the election for Sarah Palin and that old guy.

Incidentally, while we’re on the subject of Europe, what in the fuck is wrong with it

Its current leadership is made up of wingnuts. I do believe we’ve seen this phenomenon before here in the United States.

While fucking cunts and sucking cocks is perfectly admirable as a diversion, hobby, or vocation.

I am interested in your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

You know, when GW was shoveling billions of dollars to KBC and Halliburton and Lockheed and Carlyle and all those guys, No One Dared Call it Socialism. Even though it was.

Without the government, all those companies wouldn’t exist

But instead, we get to endure the needledicked concerns of a guy who ONLY NOW feels that the President is a bit pink. That’s why this whole argument about socialism and capitalism is so pointless.

* offer not valid for the fiscally wasteful, pork-laden, bureaucratically crippled military-industrial complex, which is to be unquestioned to the point of not even noticing it other than the Troops, which are underfunded not because of the whacked priorities of of the aforementioned fiscally wasteful, pork-laden, bureaucratically crippled military-industrial complex itself, but because of the Appeasers in Congress, and additionally, Shut Up, That’s Why, and additionally laser planes are cool, and you are an Appeaser in Congress if you seek to move money away from the laser planes, which would be not Honoring the Troops.

You know, when GW was shoveling billions of dollars to KBC and Halliburton and Lockheed and Carlyle and all those guys, No One Dared Call it Socialism. Even though it was.

Socialism for the rich, feudalism for the poor. I like to think the absurd, fatal orgy of overweening greed, self-delusion and the pursuit of immediate personal gains at the cost of imminent personal destruction – maybe, just maybe, might scare the Chinese straight, because they’re falling into the same pattern and we’re not most of the First World’s manufacturing base.

The plus side, such as it is, is that America’s surviving plutocrats have no interest in being governed by a party whose position on the economy is “no haircuts for domestic retention of assets!”

Which sort of makes it a pity that Obama has been as generally centrist/right-leaning as he has been in government. If forced to choose between Krugman and the teabaggers they’d take aggressive nationalization, tax progessivization, and inflationary spending and thank him for it.

alec, she’s not even a PR except ethnically. She was born in the Bronx. Of Puerto Rican “immigrants” who, like all Puerto Ricans since 1917, were American citizens.

alec, she’s not even a PR except ethnically. She was born in the Bronx.

I could have sworn she was born in Puerto Rico. Ah well, innocent mistake.

There is a significant thing to be celebrated here, rather like in the Obamas’ trip to Broadway: like most Americans, both Obama and Sotomayor are city-dwellers, and they share more with the suburbs than they do with gated communities and family compounds. Their idea of a good time is not pretending to be a cowboy. (And as such, I imagine they’ll have a better time getting along with actual cowboys than George “Oh God No, That Horse Is Totally Looking At Me” Dubya. Living as I do within a mile of UNLV’s annual decision to disrupt finals and non-basketball athletic training with a fucking rodeo, I have this high-powered contempt for California-ass dudes with bolo ties, Stetsons, and immaculate shitkickers that can’t be fully translated into words. Palin and McCain woulda been hell even on vacation.)

And the presumptive, inferiority-complex-driven obsession with elitism, snootiness, and cultural judgement (which Adam Cadre describes beautifully) in America’s scenic horseshit country seems to be a primarily Republican phenomenon these days. I like to think the era of national contests between small-town careerists and family-money jackasses is basically doomed along with the Republicans, but you never know what a cockroach will survive when it needs to.)

So we can’t have this debate unless we come up with a new technical term for it free from the connotations…

Jesus-based economics

Fred FTW!

Obvious answers to obvious questions:

“Well, you could, I suppose, either admit that you’re a kook or just shut the fuck up. If any of our readers have other ideas, Scheie has a comments section where I’m sure your ideas would be warmly welcomed.”

Shut the fuck up. Definitely, shut the fuck up.

Why do people always look at me funny when my Sea Org ship docks and I tell them of our plans to protect the Earth from the invading space DC-3’s and the body thetans?

I worry that “socialist” within five words of “Barack Obama” has become code language
[…]
this creepy 1:feeling 2:that 3:I 4:can’t 5:talk 6:about socialism

Not much more than 5. If I thought he had the smarts, I’d suspect the creep of creepily creeping the word creeping in there near socialism.

I suspect he’s not clever enough for that so I’ll just chalk it up to (extremely) dumb luck.

Goddammit, I hate when I have some snark to contribute and “REAL LIFE” (<– said in a warbly Homer Simpson voice) interferes. Fuck you capitalism.

Anyway – point in hand, Mr. Eric reminds me of nothing so much as a guy sitting in an insane asylum, fretting that if those stupid crazy people over there don’t shut up it’ll distract him from planning his strategy at Waterloo.

protect the Earth from the invading space DC-3’s

No, no. It is the evil DC-8 that SeaOrg is protecting the Earth from.

Those lousy DC-3’s wouldn’t make it past Alpha Centauri.

his strategy at Waterloo.

I prefer “Dancing Queen”

But here’s my problem: I am sick to death of this creepy feeling that I can’t talk about socialism without sounding like a kook.

Any ideas?

Um, sit down at the kitchen table and eat a big heapin’ steaming bowl of dicks.

Dicks(tm) – the breakfast Wingnuttia wakes up to!

No, no. It is the evil DC-8 that SeaOrg is protecting the Earth from.

O NOEZ i has bin fed bad info by a clearly inferior knock-off Sea Org. They never eben once locked me in an ankor chain room. Thankfuly ther ar mor faythful typs.

Once upon a time (75 million years ago to be more precise) there was an alien galactic ruler named Xenu. Xenu was in charge of all the planets in this part of the galaxy including our own planet Earth, except in those days it was called Teegeeack.

Xenu the alien ruler Now Xenu had a problem. All of the 76 planets he controlled were overpopulated. Each planet had on average 178 billion people. He wanted to get rid of all the overpopulation so he had a plan.

Xenu took over complete control with the help of renegades to defeat the good people and the Loyal Officers. Then with the help of psychiatrists he called in billions of people for income tax inspections where they were instead given injections of alcohol and glycol mixed to paralyse them. Then they were put into space planes that looked exactly like DC8s (except they had rocket motors instead of propellers).

These DC8 space planes then flew to planet Earth where the paralysed people were stacked around the bases of volcanoes in their hundreds of billions. When they had finished stacking them around then H-bombs were lowered into the volcanoes. Xenu then detonated all the H-bombs at the same time and everyone was killed.

The story doesn’t end there though. Since everyone has a soul (called a “thetan” in this story) then you have to trick souls into not coming back again. So while the hundreds of billions of souls were being blown around by the nuclear winds he had special electronic traps that caught all the souls in electronic beams (the electronic beams were sticky like fly-paper).

After he had captured all these souls he had them packed into boxes and taken to a few huge cinemas. There all the souls had to spend days watching special 3D motion pictures that told them what life should be like and many confusing things. In this film they were shown false pictures and told they were God, The Devil and Christ. In the story this process is called “implanting”.

When the films ended and the souls left the cinema these souls started to stick together because since they had all seen the same film they thought they were the same people. They clustered in groups of a few thousand. Now because there were only a few living bodies left they stayed as clusters and inhabited these bodies.

As for Xenu, the Loyal Officers finally overthrew him and they locked him away in a mountain on one of the planets. He is kept in by a force-field powered by an eternal battery and Xenu is still alive today.

I don’t know why but people often look at me funny when I hand them this leaflet as I knock on their front doors at 3 am. It is so unfair.

But here’s my problem: I am sick to death of this creepy feeling that I can’t talk about socialism without sounding like a kook.

Any ideas?

I say go for it. Embrace that inner kook that’s so desperately trying to get Kick back, fire one up and let your freak flag fly, son. And if square liberals don’t want to dig on your reality, that’s just too bad, man.

Who’s he worried about pissing off, anyway? Does he really think your standard ranch conservative really cares about honest, intelligent debate over the merits of socialism in U.S. economy? Hell, no, they don’t.

By the way, that is the stupidest genocidal plan I have ever heard anyone imagining. You’re going to kill a lot of people with hydrogen bombs, but first you paralyze them and transport their bodies via space planes to somewhere else.

Shit, even Star Trek villains have better ideas that are less costly.

“But, Master Xenu! We don’t have the budget to build nearly a billion rocket space planes and get over a hundred billion paralyzed people loaded on board!!!”

“SILENCE FOOL, I have given you an order and it is not your business that I am currently on every mind-altering drug I have encountered in the known universe!”

since they had all seen the same film they thought they were the same people

This is perfectly normal and explains why it’s so hard to find your car in the parking lot afterward, since they all do indeed look like “your car”.

But here’s my problem: I am sick to death of this creepy feeling that I can’t talk about socialism without sounding like a kook.

Any ideas?

You could … oh, I don’t know, make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and go out on the porch?

Then with the help of psychiatrists he called in billions of people for income tax inspections where they were instead given injections of alcohol and glycol mixed to paralyse them.

Moral: If your psychiatrist calls you up and says you need to come in about your income tax, stay away from his office lest you end up on a volcano-bound spaceship.

including our own planet Earth, except in those days it was called Teegeeack

I hereby nominate that we change it back.

I don’t know why but people often look at me funny when I hand them this leaflet as I knock on their front doors at 3 am. It is so unfair.

The Scientologists tried to recruit Elvis. Truth. But the King was too smart for them. Sayeth he, “Fuck those people, they’re only after my money.” And this was when the Big E was staying up six or seven weeks at a stretch thanks to his special medication and spent all his copious spare time reading every New Age printed nonsense he could get his hands on. That’s how dumb Scientology is.

Embrace that inner kook that’s so desperately trying to get Kick back, fire one up and let your freak flag fly, son.

Agreed. Every conversation he has from now on should include the phrase “vault copy.”

That’s how dumb Scientology is.

It’s just tragic. Back when ole’ L Ron was just writing SciFi and hadn’t started his cult, he wrote a letter to a fellow writer talking about what a glorious money-making scheme starting a religion would be.

Read about it in the New Improved Scientologist-Free wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._Ron_Hubbard

The Scientologists tried to recruit Elvis. Truth. But the King was too smart for them.

They might have gotten him if they could have come up with some decent hymns. But writing a good hymn isn’t the strong suit of your standard complete wacko.

You gotta admit, if it weren’t so evil, Scientology would be pretty funny given how much of its ‘secret’ founding myths by L. Ron Hubbard were based on petty situations that he, Hubbard, found himself in.

It was no accident that the most evilest force in the universe for Scientologism is psychiatry, given that everyone except his cult loonies recognized Hubbard for the shitbird crazy nut he was.

As for Xenu, the Loyal Officers finally overthrew him and they locked him away in a mountain on one of the planets. He is kept in by a force-field powered by an eternal battery

I had one of those in a ’69 Olds I owned. Seven years old and still started a Big Block in the coldest weather.

G. Gordon Liddy calling her an illegal immigrant.

Seriously, he did? I read about the other stuff he did, but I hadn’t heard this one.

G. Gordon Liddy suggested that with regard to the Latino-rights organization to which she had belonged, the National Council of La Raza, “La Raza” meant “in illegal alien” ‘the race’.

So, instead of saying “in Spanish”, Liddy said “in illegal alien,” because those hundreds of millions of people throughout Latin and South America and Spain are speaking “illegal alien,” which is the language in which Cervantes wrote Don Quijote about the old man sneaking into the USA so that he could steal an American’s job.

g – He said La Raza is “illegal alien for ‘The Race’.” (Insert boilerplate exegesis on “la raza” translating to something more like “the [Chicano] people” and not having racist implications, as well as the organization’s current status as a staid ethnic defense lobby which makes the NAACP look like bomb throwers.)

I guess that’s not technically calling Sotomayor an illegal alien as much as calling every Spanish-speaking human being one.

El Cid, Liddy has never heard of Cervantes. There’s no pictures of large-breasted women holding guns in Don Quixote.

So, instead of saying “in Spanish”, Liddy said “in illegal alien,” because those hundreds of millions of people throughout Latin and South America and Spain are speaking “illegal alien,” which is the language in which Cervantes wrote Don Quijote about the old man sneaking into the USA so that he could steal an American’s job.

“Goddammit, those are AMERICAN windmills! There should be AMERICANS tilting at them, not Messicans!”

There’s no pictures of large-breasted women holding guns in Don Quixote

*makes mental note to see if one can’t be published*

Hell, it’d boost sales, if nothing else.

OT, but more proof that we have writers for the Simpsons in our midst. I give you Smut Simpson and can’t be arsed to insert the obligatory preemptive apology in case someone has already posted this.

OK, i’d heard that. Calling her an illegal immigrant I hadn’t heard, but I think there’s someone out there who did actually call her an immigrant, I forget who.

Did you hear that Rick Santorum ecnourages all African- Americans to take their wives down to the corner bar for a shot and a beer?

Lawnguylander, I can’t read that website. What’s it in, illegal alien?

There’s no pictures of large-breasted women holding guns in Don Quixote.

Maybe all it would take would be a flashback episode of the Colombian soap opera about young girls getting boob jobs.

It would be nice to have time for an essay-length discussion, but I don’t.

…but I don’t have a legitimate definition for what socialism really is, so I’ll just use the word as an anti-Obama shibboleth so I can suck on that sweet, sweet Wingnut Welfare teat.

…but I don’t have a legitimate definition for what socialism really is, so I’ll just use the word as an anti-Obama shibboleth so I can suck on that sweet, sweet Wingnut Welfare teat.

I was going to mow the lawn but socialism appropriated my motivation, so I am going Galt to deny the government of the public good of my mown lawn.

There’s no pictures of large-breasted women holding guns in Don Quixote.
Maybe all it would take would be a flashback episode of the Colombian soap opera about young girls getting boob jobs.
I’ll just use the word as an anti-Obama shibboleth so I can suck on that sweet, sweet Wingnut Welfare teat.

Make it stop.

Insert boilerplate exegesis on “la raza” translating to something more like “the [Chicano] people” and not having racist implications

“La raza” is not only better translated as “ethnicity” than “race”, it isn’t even particularly singular. Some words that are plural in English (people, clothes) take on the singular form in Spanish (la gente, la ropa).

Columbus Day is commemorated in many countries as “Dia de la Raza”, a celebration of the multiethnic fabric of Latin American societies. I guess that you could call it “Race Day”, but you would have a hard time figuring out which race.

I was going to mow the lawn

Oh God. He’s not back, is he?

You know, Liddy’s comment really says a lot about where the right-wing mentality is these days.

Let’s ignore the fact for the moment that he has no idea that Puerto Rico is part of the U.S., or that she was born in Brooklyn. He claims that la Raza is a phrase in “illegal alien”, leading one to conclude that not only (as far as wingnuts are concerned) are all Hispanics by definition “illegals” (which is where they’ve been going all along) but that ONLY Spanish-speakers are capable of being “illegals”.

The Right should just face up to the fact that they think ALL Hispanics are illegal immigrants, regardless of where they were born.

“La raza” is not only better translated as “ethnicity” than “race”, it isn’t even particularly singular.

which shows that a) “ethnicity” has too many syllables for the wingnut brain to process, and b) that they’re as adept with linguistics as they are with everything else (just ’cause there’s an article before the noun in Spanish does not mean it translates directly).

He claims that la Raza is a phrase in “illegal alien”, leading one to conclude that not only (as far as wingnuts are concerned) are all Hispanics by definition “illegals” (which is where they’ve been going all along) but that ONLY Spanish-speakers are capable of being “illegals”

One phrase I see a lot on the rightwing web is “nonspeaking illegals,” as in, “I don’t eat at restaurants that employ nonspeaking illegals.”

While it is a long, clumsy phrase for regular use, it efficiently implies both that English is the only language in existence and that it is illegal to be brown. Clever little bigots, no?

The fact is, Obama is a Stalinist, not a socialist.

That’s why he’s spent so much time manipulating science and history to conform to his twisted ideology, suppressing any evidence and tarring as a traitor anyone who might dare to suggest that the real world is more complex than his absolutist, naive “unicorns shitting rainbows” ideology said it should be.

You gotta admit, if it weren’t so evil, Scientology would be pretty funny given how much of its ’secret’ founding myths by L. Ron Hubbard were based on petty situations that he, Hubbard, found himself in.

Yeah, I love how he just started his own navy and appointed himself “commodore” after being a miserable failure in the real navy. Who the hell sits down and says, I’m gonna start my own navy? You know, outside of bath-time. Of course, why the hell would you need a navy to fight aliens from outer space? “Sir, a bunch of flying saucers just over Washington, D.C.” “Send in the Coast Guard, the Scientologists, and T-Pain. We’re got them right where we want them.”

You know, when GW was shoveling billions of dollars to KBC and Halliburton and Lockheed and Carlyle and all those guys, No One Dared Call it Socialism. Even though it was.

No, that’s fascism, not socialism.

Make it stop.

I’m such a boob. I was supposed to grab some melons at the market. My mammary’s not what it used to be.

I was supposed to grab some melons at the market. My mammary’s not what it used to be.

Honeydew reduction surgery?

I was going to mow the lawn but socialism appropriated my motivation, so I am going Galt to deny the government of the public good of my mown lawn.I>

You’re just not a sociopath, so going Galt’s not an option for you.

he is worse than Victor Davis Hanson, the cuntfucker.

Hey! We resent being lumped in with this cocksucker.

We need a slur that doesn’t have collateral damage… corpse raper? Hitlerbator? Cigar Skunker?

Hitlerbator?

OMG THINK OF ALL THE BABY HITLERS!!!

Far be it from me to imply that Mr. Scheie is a sheep-botherer, but how can I suggest that he’s been seen creeping down to the pasture at dusk with a sack of oats and a scented candle without feeling like a kook?

GALT FAIL!!!!! By not mowing your lawn, you are conserving any fossil fuels that would be used by a gasoline powered lawn mower

You stupid hippie lib. Galtians just let the gas lawn mower sit in one spot and run at full throttle. To actually mow the lawn we get a bunch of people from the sea of worthless consuming humanity and simply tell them it is their role to cut the grass for superior beings like myself. I give them each a small scissors and let them at those pesky green Hitler-stalks.

OMG THINK OF ALL THE BABY HITLERS!!!

…which prompts my brain in “tasteless mode” to contemplate a cartoon called “The Lil’ Nazis” with Baby Hitler and Baby Goering and Baby Von Baby Ribbentrop, plotting the Thousand Year Playtime versus the toy-snatching Baby Stalin and devious Baby Churchill… Baby Hitler waddling around in a red & black diaper, followed by adorable shouts of “Sieg Heiwl!”, Baby Goering in review of the toy soldiers, Baby Speer building a little Recihstag out of alphabet blocks…

…hey, they put “Hogan’s Heroes” on TV. Why not this?

I would totally watch that show.

[Hitler behind crib bars getting an idea…]

MEIN SNUGGEL!

Ooooo, he’s such a clever little fuhrer! Do you like your rattle? Dooo you like your rattle?

Fucking WordPress didn’t even want me to post that – accused me of “cheating”. FYWP

“Da hallway… is histowically part of the BABY’S ROOM! We muss have,,, WEBENSRAUM!”

oh, this could get soooooo fucking offensive sooo quickly.

Uh-oh! Baby van der Lubbe’s been playing with matches again! I smell trouble!

interesting pie chart at the atlantic

http://business.theatlantic.com/2009/06/now_that_the_government_owns_general_motors.php

sure looks like socialism gone wild to me.

“sure looks like socialism gone wild to me.”

It’s a looming snowball of socialisticism!

I worry that “socialist” within five words of “Barack Obama” has become code language for belief in various popular far-right conspiracy theories. In theory, “socialism” is still a perfectly legitimate word, but I worry that it is becoming delegitimized.

I heard a nearly identical lament from a Catholic acquaintance last week.

“In theory, ‘Catholic priests’ are still a perfectly legitimate voice of moral authority, but I worry that they are becoming delegitimized just because a few tens of thousands of them or so turned out to be dangerous child-abusing monsters.”

ron said,

sure looks like socialism gone wild to me.

I’ve quickly concluded that there’s a lot of stupid common taters running wild at the atlantic.

I love how he just started his own navy and appointed himself “commodore” after being a miserable failure in the real navy. Who the hell sits down and says, I’m gonna start my own navy? You know, outside of bath-time. Of course, why the hell would you need a navy to fight aliens from outer space?

I always thought this had everything to do with putting the global Scientology leadership out of reach of the national laws of any sovereign authority. But that would be ascribing very cynical motives to Mr. Hubbard’s “religion”.

Who the hell sits down and says, I’m gonna start my own navy?

Well, if you have a thing for sailors…

But here’s my problem: I am sick to death of this creepy feeling that I can’t talk about socialism without sounding like a kook.

Any ideas?

Read your posts to yourself in a mirror before you hit the ‘publish’ button.

Won’t fix the ‘Kook’ problem but at least you’ll know what you look like while doing it.

Still not worth covering here, in Latin America news, since it’s only newsworthy to panic because someone just accused Hugo Chavez of looking like he might have farted:

Okay, in Colombia, not only are the 4 previous heads of the state intelligence agency under arrest and investigation for illegally using U.S. supplied electronic surveillance equipment to spy on, oh, you know, the Colombian Supreme Court, the national and local prosecutors, and liberal journalists (including the leading editors and journalists of the magazine Semana who broke the story), the liberal-left opposition politicians, businessmen, human rights activists, and fuck, anyone they fucking felt like spying on…

But now, one of those former heads of the Colombian equivalent of FBI / Homeland Security has pleaded for asylum in Canada because he fears for his family’s life since he has been testifying that high officials in U.S. buddy President Uribe’s offices, duh, ordered the wiretapping, because, duh, otherwise our retarded journalists and hawk-happy politicians here would be pleased as punch with Uribe’s excuse that, ‘hey, it wasn’t fucking me, ’cause, I just nominate these leaders, and they report directly to, um, my office, and yeah, one of ’em was my fucking re-election campaign director who’s now been charged with assassinating a professor and two union organizers by passing their wiretapping info to death squads’…

But other than that, yeah, doesn’t that Hugo Chavez look mean and say funny things!!!

sure looks like socialism gone wild to me.

I was in New Orleans weekend before last and saw socialism flashing its hooters on Bourbon Street.

Or alternatively,

Whatcha gonna do, brother, when socialism runs wild on you?

I’m surprised wingnuts aren’t all over this story of another high profile extreme right wing Republican Internet sex predator. This one’s a furrie or furry or whateverthefuck animal-suited weirdo who works as a top aide for one of the scariest looking people I’ve seen: Jane Orie, who makes the Bride of Chuckie look soft and inviting.

Bride of Chuckie vs Jane Orie.

Friday [Jane Orie] fired one of her top aides, Alan David Berlin. The report in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is almost funny if it weren’t so tragically Republican. It starts off like typical GOP fare– another Republican closet case solicits sex from a young boy (15 years old) online. But then it gets really strange.

In a series of instant messages and online chats, Alan David Berlin, 40, of Carlisle, discussed dressing up in animal costumes and engaging in various sex acts with the boy, the state attorney general’s office said yesterday.

…According to the criminal complaint, Mr. Berlin proposed traveling to the boy’s home in Harrisburg, about 20 miles from Carlisle, and having sex in the backyard and in a shed on his parents’ property. He also allegedly offered to arrange a meeting in a hotel room so Mr. Berlin could take photos of the boy and another adult having sex.

The online communication took place on seven different days between April 27 and May 25, according to the criminal complaint. Investigators say some of the messages originated from a Senate computer.

Investigators believe Mr. Berlin and the boy met on an Internet site for “furries,” an online community of people who adopt half-animal, half-human personas.

In one message, according to the complaint, Mr. Berlin requested pictures of the boy and wrote, “When will your folks be out?”

Other messages describe various sex acts in explicit detail and refer to “yiffing,” which is a “furry” term for having sex.

Mr. Berlin used the screen name “alan_panda_bear” in his messages. He also used that name for an online personal ad that depicts cartoonish panda bears, one wearing a diaper.

“I’m a Daddyfur and Caretaker and I am looking for a babyfur to be my mate and my companion in a long-term committed relationship,” the ad says. “I am a hopeless romantic and very affectionate, freely giving hugs, scritches, cuddles and kisses.”

But here’s my problem: I am sick to death of this creepy feeling that I can’t talk about socialism without sounding like a kook.

Any ideas?

Yeah. Twelve:

1. Admit that you are powerless over your own kookiness–that your life has become unmanageably kooky.

2. Come to believe that a power greater than yourself (i.e. socialism) could restore you to sanity.

3. Make a decision to turn your will and your life over to the care of Karl Marx as we understand Him.

4. Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of your kooky-ass, right-wing-toga-partygoing self.

5. Admit to Marx, to yourself, and to another human being the exact nature of your wrongs. (Also known as “writing a self-criticism.”)

6. Be entirely ready to have Marx remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly ask Him to remove your shortcomings.

8. Make a list of all persons you have harmed with your kookiness, and become willing to make amends to them all.

9. Make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others (or cause them to look at you funny).

10. Continue to take personal inventory and when you are wrong, promptly admit it. (Which should help to make Classical Ripoffs strangely and suddenly interesting.)

11. Seek through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with Marx as you understand Him, praying only for knowledge of His Will for us and the power to carry that out. (In a non-theist kind of way, of course.)

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, try to carry this message to other wingnuts, and to practice these principles in all your affairs.

“I’m a Daddyfur and Caretaker and I am looking for a babyfur

Okay, there ain’t much humans do to get each off that I find unsettling, because hey… but that right there? Creepy as hell.

The idea that you would find out one day that, yes, children really do have to fear that they will be sexually preyed on by adults wearing life-size anthropomorphic animal outfits — and not just that it would happen, because some predator adult happened to be wearing that suit, but because it was a necessary part of the predation… Just, ew, you know, ew.

Mr. Berlin had worked for the state Senate since 1993, most recently as a $57,000-a-year aide to Ms. Orie, who has been the force behind efforts to strengthen the state’s sexual predator laws. One proposal called for repeat offenders to wear tracking devices after they had completed their sentences.

…Authorities also found a wolf costume and cat-type costume while searching Berlin’s home, but the panda costume has not been found.

A photo of the rather infantile looking Panda Man.

A blogger writes: “Is there a worse thought in the world than looking out into your backyard and seeing a giant panda bear screwing your son in the ass? Let me think for a secon….No!”

Thank God, I’m childless is all I can say.

Fucking whiny ass titty babies. Waah! I don’t like this feeling that I’m feeling, make it stop! Christ, next they’ll be complaining because the guy in the mirror is looking at them funny.

But here’s my problem:

Or at least one of them.

I am sick to death of this creepy feeling that I can’t talk about socialism without sounding like a kook.

Any ideas?

Let’s see. It must be something that shows you’re a reasonable modern day conservative. Hmmm.

[light bulb]

I know! Send your CongressCritter teabags until he introduces legislation that would make sniggering at people who talk about socialism a capital offense!

The unsung victims are the other panda furry pedophiles, who will now be suspected of being Republicans.

A blogger writes: “Is there a worse thought in the world than looking out into your backyard and seeing a giant panda bear screwing your son in the ass? Let me think for a secon….No!”

Well, first you’d probably wonder if you had accidentally eaten some funny mushrooms or had passed out on the way to the shed and were hallucinating. And then once reality struck, there would likely be some weird ass PTSD which you could literally discuss with no one.

Well, if you have a thing for sailors…

I can’t believe you passed up a perfectly good seamen joke.

I can’t resist:

I’d rather confront a real Panda in my backyard than a furrie version. What’s the worst he’d be doing? Eating the garden.

I can’t believe you passed up a perfectly good seamen joke.

I try to avoid using the sea-ward.

St. Bina wins the whole en-tire thread, kooks, fur suit and all.

One phrase I see a lot on the rightwing web is “nonspeaking illegals,” as in, “I don’t eat at restaurants that employ nonspeaking illegals.”

The smoking gun on Panda Man:

http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:1R_Rfmh3IK4J:ww.pounced.org/personals/viewad.php%3F%26hcenc%3D1%26hpad%3D14684+alan_panda_bear&amp;

As it happens, I know three babyfurs. They are basically harmless. But this guy creeps me right the fuck out. A fetish is one thing, but trolling for guys 15-20 years younger than you is just gross.

St. Bina wins the whole en-tire thread, kooks, fur suit and all.

Why thank you! What’s the prize?

Why thank you! What’s the prize?

A copy of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire personally autographed by Eric Claudius Drusus Germanicus Scheie.

Ooo, that sounds…INTERESTING.

Meanwhile, this has just got yiffable written all over it:

Now, what I am looking for.

* A babyfur
* Someone who is between the ages of 20 and 25 (we can talk about edging that either direction)
* Someone who has completed or is in the process of finishing their college degree or technical training
* Someone who can drive and has their own car. It’s amazing to me how many furs don’t even know how to drive.
* Someone who is intelligent and has goals and a purpose for their life
* Someone who can work and contribute to household expenses
* Someone who likes to wear diapers and use them for their intended purposes
* Someone who is an independent adult but can let go of that and enjoy being babied (changed, dressed, bathed, snuggled, given a bottle, etc)
* Someone who doesn’t want to be a baby 24/7. I can’t be on duty every minute of every day and frankly, that would get annoying and I would begin to resent it fairly quickly.
* Someone who can call me Daddy when they’re being little
* Someone who is ideally shorter than I am and height and weight proportional. Yes, I know that is hypocritical but I have my likes and dislikes just like everyone else.

Note the age range. He sure was awfully willing to “edge” it awfully far down, wasn’t he?

* I’m a Daddyfur/Caretaker who likes to wear diapers at times and use them for their intended purposes
* I occasionally like to be babied
* I’ve got a good job where I am well respected and I have been employed for over 17 years
* I have a Bachelors Degree in Sacred Music
* I have a deep personal faith in God which I sometimes question and which I rarely discuss
* I’ve been told that I’m boring but I have done many interesting things and met lots of interesting people

FYP

I am sick to death of this creepy feeling that I can’t talk about the Deros without sounding like a kook.

* Someone who is ideally shorter than I am and height and weight proportional. Yes, I know that is hypocritical but I have my likes and dislikes just like everyone else.

Note the age range. He sure was awfully willing to “edge” it awfully far down, wasn’t he?

Only because the kid wasn’t a fatty. That’s where he draws the line.

I am sick to death of this creepy feeling that I can’t talk about TIME CUBE without sounding like a kook.

Wow … G. Gordon Liddy, Sea Org, furry pedos, Goldberg, Mark Levin … it’s like a Batshit Buffet!

1 – ownership of companies? That’s communism, not socialism.
2 – Since when do communists stop at 70% of one company?
3 – WTF would this guy rather do in this point? Just hand the companies money? The people? Let everyone die?

*sigh*

I’d rather confront a real Panda in my backyard
What?
The Australians have an expression about “Having kangaroos loose in the top paddock”. Is this your North American equivalent?

Ooo, Lesley didn’t warn us that if you follow the link, you get the Panda Sex song. I feel the need to warn you for your own good, so here’s the link you need to not follow.

Oh, boy! A pasty, three hundred pound, pedophile furry with a scat fetish. They are just going to loooooove him in prison. I don’t think FYIAD is going to be an effective argument where he’s going.

A fluffy panda. Yeesh.

I’d rather confront a real Panda in my backyard
What?
The Australians have an expression about “Having kangaroos loose in the top paddock”. Is this your North American equivalent?

No. It’s furry-speak for “bottom.”

Total pandaemonium ensued.

since they had all seen the same film they thought they were the same people
This is perfectly normal and explains why it’s so hard to find your car in the parking lot afterward, since they all do indeed look like “your car”.

The analogy would be closer if, on the way home, you discovered that you were sharing the car with the other 17 people who thought it belonged to them. This is why I don’t drive.

There’s no pictures of large-breasted women holding guns in Don Quixote.

Clearly you need the updated edition.

GAW-DAMN, all that potential hanging out there in the open and NOT ONE Pedo-Bear reference? I’m ashamed of you people.

…hanging out there…

um, I think I chose the wrong phrase, ’cause the associations it’s bringing up make me want to go vomit. Eyrhgh.

But here’s my problem: I am sick to death of this creepy feeling that I can’t talk about sex with underage boys while wearing a fursuit without sounding like a pervert.

Any ideas?

But here’s my problem: I am sick to death of this creepy feeling that I can’t talk about sex with underage boys while wearing a fursuit without sounding like a pervert.

Any ideas?

Yeah. STFU!