Phriday Phun
Straight from the nether regions of the Andromeda Galaxy comes Ace of Spades, who’s here to tell us all why we REALLY “hate” Jeff Goldstein! Personally, I love it when people tell me what my true motivations really are- I get learn so much about what a rat bastard I actually am:
Goldstein is, strangely enough, one of the most reviled figures on the right of the blogosphere. LGF may get death threats from jihadists, but actual American lefties seem to despise Goldstein the most.
Forgive me for repeating myself, as I so often do, in this post. I’ve expressed these ideas before, but, as I so often do, in a sloppy and slapdash form.
We’ve noticed.
I’ve tried to be a little more organized here. And, in case you’re worried, this post isn’t really about Jeff Goldstein; I, for one, cannot imagine a more excruciatingly tedius subject for an essay.
Jeff is excruciatingly tedious, isn’t he?
It’s about the left.
Lucky. Us.
I think I do know why Goldstein in particular is so reviled. He himself provides the answer here, writing about why the Left hates Israel and conservative blacks so much…
I’ll just summarize Jeff’s argument here, because it’s really ponderous and boring. Basically, he thinks that we on the left “hate” Israel and black Republicans because all minorities are supposed to be on our side, and when they wander off our reservation for greener GOP pastures, we feel a sense of betrayal akin to that felt by Caesar Jesus Washington when Brutus Judas Arnold stabbed him in the back as he was watching Bob Dylan play “Maggie’s Farm” at Newport in ’65. That’s the type of betrayal I’m talkin’ ’bout, bitches. And it hurts.
Now, let’s get back to Ace:
The left, to a man, considers itself to be educated and enlightened.
No I don’t. I swear to God, if you troll through the archives here, you’ll find nothing that’s educated nor enlightened. You’ll find a lot of poo and penis jokes (and to be fair they’re some of the best damn poo and penis jokes in the world), but they’re not exactly stuff you want to bring up at your next philosophy roundtable.
Gavin adds: I’m educated and enlightened, you big penis made of poo, or turd that is actually a penis. …Oh wow, that’s really disgusting when you think about it. Ick.
It matters not how little actual schooling a particlular leftist may have had, nor how unintelligent the person might be. They all consider themselves intellectuals of sorts. If they dropped out of college after one semester, they just think of themselves as autodidacts whose genius could not be stimulated by the ossified and bourgeois teaching of the academy. If they’re just plain stupid or crazy — like, say, Charlie Sheen — they indulge in farcial conspiracy-theorizing, reassuring themselves that they are intellectual because they know things others do not.
Uh, Acer? Did you really just use Charlie Sheen as a representative example of THE LEFT!!!!!!? Well then, if it’s cool to tar your opponents with lame-ass washed-up actors who happen to share their political ideology in some shallow way, I’m gonna start mentioning the Ultimate Warrior in every debate I have. Here, let’s try it out:
“The right, best exemplified by the Ultimate Warrior, seemed to think it was funny when people in New Orleans drowned last year.”
Weeeeee! I could go on like this all day!
They are one of the chosen few brave enough to see past the web of lies and glimpse the arcane truth behind, say, the implosion of the World Trade Center (a SEAL team planted those charges, you know?).
I have never said- or even thought of thinking of saying I thought- that Navy SEALs blew up the WTC. What’s more, I challenge Ace to find any mainstream lefty (i.e., not some putz posting his latest nutball conspiracy theory over at the Democratic Underground) who has ever said such a thing.
This conceit, usually wholly undeserved, of practically every leftist in the world is what makes leftism so intoxicating for the intellectually insecure, and what makes leftists so easily led and manipulated. It’s an attractive doctrine for those who wish to conceive of themselves as intellectual and brilliant, for it provides an instant short-cut to the equivalent of an MIT education.
I wonder if Ace realizes that Noam Chomsky- who is about as left-wing as you can get- actually teaches at MIT.
If you simply believe these things we tell you to believe, you are one of Us, one of the Intellectually Elite, one of the Cultural Vanguard. Just as giving oneself to Christ, and believing in His power, and accepting the need for and gift of His redemption, instantly makes one “saved” and enters one’s name in the Book of the Heaven, so too does accepting leftist tropes and core beliefs make one one of the Secular Elect.
Being a member of the Secular Elect sounds pretty boring. Can I just get a gift certificate to Legal Seafoods and call it even?
Now, the things the left wants you to believe are not easy to believe. It’s hard to believe that, for example, taxing work and investment will not reduce work and investment (especially when one simultaneously believes that taxing the use of gasoline or other energy will reduce the use of gasoline or other energy).
Dude, look. I know that if you tax something, it creates a deadweight loss in some other part of the economy. But guess what? Taxes are necessary to fund the government. I know it sucks because it means you have less money to spend on Cheetos and Mountain Dew, but that’s the way she goes. Personally, I find the tax-and-spend policies of THE LEFT!!!! to be vastly preferable to the George W. Bush model of spend-and-sell-treasury-bonds-to-the-Chinese.
Nevertheless, while it may be difficult to believe these things, it’s certainly easier to simply give in and believe these things than to, say, earn a Ph. D. in literary theory or semiotics or even something stupid like science or engineering. So, if one wants to conceive of oneself as an intellectual, one can either actually become an intellectual — which frankly takes a lot of work and reading, much of it terribly boring — or one can simply believe what Noam Chomsky tells one.
There is no intellectual dissent on THE LEFT!!!!, which is why Brad DeLong and Noam Chomsky are best pals EVAR!
As for myself: I actually would kind of like to be an intellectual, but I haven’t the patience or discipline for becoming one the hard way, and I also can’t believe what Chomsky tells me, so, alas, I have to honestly assess and accept myself as a non-intellectual.
Just read Instapundit every day. That will once and for all end your intellectual ambitions.
That notion is abhorrent to your typical leftist, so he chooses Option B.
Jeebus. Dude, if you want to find liberals/leftists challenging Noam Chomsky, you don’t have to look very far. Just off the top of my head, here’s DeLong, Alterman, and Bérubé. Repeat after me, Ace: THE LEFT!!! does not have a hive mind. We do not all think alike.
From a cost-benefit standpoint, it’s really a no-brainer. Like I said: an easy way to “earn” the “equivalent” of an advanced degree from CalTech or the University of Chicago. Believe these things, accept this dogma, take these gods as your own and keep them sacred, and you are reborn holy and clean as one of the smart set.
Ace? Are you going to start providing evidence for these claims, or are you just jerking off?
Leftism, and liberalism, and progressivism, and etc-ism. are not merely simple politics for most of these people. Their politics to them are a core part of their identity, and, more importantly, a central support propping up their egos. They are enlightened because they believe these things; someone who does not believe these things, and yet who, superficially at least, appears to be about as smart as they might be, represents a threat to their egos. The foundation upon which a crucial structure of their sense of self-worth is undermined if they discover that there may be people who can pass as normal and intelligent and yet do not believe as they do.
If one is smart, then one believes in progressivism.
Uh, didn’t you just call that famed “progressive” Charlie Sheen an idiot?
If one believes in progressivism, then one is smart.
Those are the two assumptions that prop up their sense of self worth, and they are refuted by examples of smart people who don’t believe in progressivism.
Aceroo, have you ever met someone who considers themselves a liberal/progressive?
And because there is a great deal of personal psychological investment in progressivism, they react intemperately to rejections of it. It’s not merely a tax cut that’s being debated; it’s they’re very sense of importance that’s being attacked. It’s not merely gay marriage which is being argued against; it’s their value as human beings that is being uncouthly denigrated.
This tends to make the left more emotional and, well, angry when debating issues. It’s all well and good to discuss a purely theoretical issue. But when you have a strong emotional investment in it — when you have skin in the game, as it were — it becomes not an academic debate but a heated argument.
Right-wingers, of course, never do such things.
When you’re discussing drilling in ANWR with a progressive, make no mistake — you are, more or less, having a debate on whether or not you should be allowed to strike him in the face. You might not see it that way, and neither does he on a conscious level, but subconsciously, that’s precisely the argument you’re having.
I’m glad Ace knows so much about my subconscious feeeeeeeeeelings. He’s a regular shrink, just like ol’ Charles Krankhammer!
Leading lights of leftism have a powerful psychological tool for enforcing their own preferred orthodoxies. It’s one thing to tell someone he’s wrong on an issue; it’s another thing to tell him, impliedly, that he’s evil or stupid because of his stance on an issue. True, a leftist can reject any progressive leader’s opinion. But when he does so he imperils his sense of self-worth.
Not to mention my penis size. Also, it brings up painful memories of my mom refusing to breast feed me as a baby.
Gavin adds: I’m still thinking of that poo-penis thing. That’s just really disgusting.
If progressivism can be challenged on this point, why not that one? And if it can be fairly challenged on many points, then how can it be those who believe in progressivism are enlightened for doing so? If major tenets of orthodox progressivism are open to debate and challenge, doesn’t that mean that one’s status of intellectual, based almost entirely on one’s belief in progressivism, is similarly open to challenge?
That way madness lies, of course.
You’re tellin’ me.
I don’t bother the left at all, because they consider me a moron.
Guilty as charged.
Don’t snigger; they think the same of you.
Mega-dittos, Rush.
I’m not really a moron, of course. But neither am I an intellectual. My various childish barbs don’t represent any real threat to the Jane Hamshers and Atrioses. I don’t self-identify as an intellectual, I don’t write like an intellectual, and I have no advanced degrees indicative of intellectualism. (An advanced degree, yes, but in a more practically-minded field.)
Ace of Spades, PhD, Jerking Off.
On the other hand, there’s Jeff Goldstein. He’s a college professor.
Isn’t he unemployed? Does that really still qualify him as a “college professor?”
He’s even in a field they respect as being particularly intellectual– literary criticism, semitiocs. You know– bullshit.
I won’t argue this point. I actually think Ace is largely correct here.
So he represents to them a threat that I’m not, wish though I do that I were. He’s a member in good standing of the intellectual class and has an official credential to prove it.
Yep, that’s why we compare Jeff to Ralph Wiggum and make jokes about him eating paste- because he’s an intellectual threat to every one of us!
Above: the greatest intellectual threat of our era.
Something that, for example, Jane Hamsher does not. (Unless serving as a producer on such movies as Natural Born Killers and, um, Double Dragon is considered to be a credential of intellectualism.)
OK, Double Dragon did suck slimy green goat balls, I’m not gonna lie.
He believes almost nothing that they do and in most of the things they don’t. And, unlike them, his status as intellectual is founded upon something more tangible and indisputable than a mere belief that Al Gore is the currently elected President of the United States.
Ergo, a direct threat not so much to their politics — they get that from all over the blogosphere — but to their egos. And that is an insult they simply cannot let stand.
He should agree with them. He should be a pious member of their church. But he strayed; he is Heretic. His very existence is anathema.
Dude- we just want him to stop eating the damn paste. Is that too much to ask?
It’s about identity politics, of course. They say that in the progressive mode of thought, “victim” is the most holy identity of all. But that’s not quite right. He holiest status among progressives is their own status — the status of Redeemer, the Hero who Saves the Victim, who liberates the enslaved. Not through actual action, of course, but through the sheer power of caring. By their lofty rhetoric shall we know them.
When progressives talk about the oppressed, those who died in Katrina, have no doubt– they’re mostly talking about themselves.
Speaking as someone who died in Katrina, I can tell you that Ace is 100% correct.
They are the ones who are concerned, who worry for the fate of this Republic. To borrow Goldstein’s schtick– the text of their expressions of outrage and compassion is merely a complex system of signifiers for the true authorial intent, the subtext, or maybe even the supertext, that they are among the chosen.
It’s official, man. You’ve stopped trying to make any sort of serious point and are now completely jerking off. I hope that PhD didn’t cost too much or anything.
Bush lied, people died. Message: I care.
Is all of this overstated? Generalizing? I suppose so.
Noooooooooo! You’d never overgeneralize, Ace!
And looking at the unhinged rantings of the left-wing of the blogosphere, and left-wing poltiicians and pundits, I simply cannot accept that all we’re talking about is politics here. I got physically angry when psychopathic death-cultists killed 2700 of my fellow Americans just 100 or so blocks south of my home. Jane Hamsher and Kos seem to get physically angry about– well, what don’t they become angry about? Why is humor and irony so common on the right and so hard to find on the left? Humor and irony require emotional distance from a subject– something I would contend the left is in of rather short supply.
I am a humorless bastard, as you’ve not doubt noticed by now.
Gavin adds: I was quite impressed by your treatise on corn subsidies, among other things. Also the monograph on poo-penis in the… Wait. I didn’t mean to say ‘poo-penis.’ Aaah, I’m getting out of here, this is crazy…
As they say– the politics is personal. And they’re quite right, though perhaps in not the way they think.
I think it’s time to clean off the ol’ keyboard, dude. I imagine it’s gotten right sticky after that rant.
You are made of strong stuff indeed, Bradrocket.
Columns like that should come with virtual lapels to give aggrieved readers something to grab onto and shake occasionally.
God damn.. I swear that if a wingnut spelled the word “parsimonious”, it would take 1000 letters.
Can they ever GET TO THE FUCKING POINT?!
Wow. Just wow.
All this time I thought I was angry because of all the pain and sufferring caused here and abroad by the Bush Administration.
Turns out I was just trying to be among “the Chosen”. I better inform all my “intellectual” friends in the Laborors, Carpenters, Electricians and Pipe Fitter’s Unions, all Progressive organizations, that they got to quit actin like their so smart….
What. A. Fruitcake.
Why is humor and irony so common on the right and so hard to find on the left? Humor and irony require emotional distance from a subject– something I would contend the left is in of rather short supply.
i think humour and irony futures just hit a low point.
…for it provides an instant short-cut to the equivalent of an MIT education.
Holy crap! There was a shortcut??!?!??!?
Why didn’t anyone tell me?!!?!one!??
(bangs head on lab bench)
Nevertheless, while it may be difficult to believe these things, it’s certainly easier to simply give in and believe these things than to, say, earn a Ph. D. in literary theory or semiotics or even something stupid like science or engineering.
Yeah, we all know how stupid those science degrees are… and easy. Did I mention easy?
What is it with these fur-knuckled cobags and the seventy five cent words?
When you join the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy do they give you a special leather bound thesaurus?
Yeah, we all know how stupid those science degrees are… and easy. Did I mention easy?
Shhhh… themann. I think he was using that right wing irony that we’ve been hearing so much about.
Of course those science and engineering degrees are stupid when they lead to perfidiously left wing conclusions like “the burning of fossil fuels is increasing the earth’s temperature and melting the polar ice caps.”
Not to mention the validity of Darwin’s “Origin of Species”. Then the scientists are just a bunch of pointy-headed elitists.
Christ, That Alterman column sure does make him look like an ass.
Which I suppose supports your theory pretty well. But his clearly felt need to put some distance between himself and the “reflexive anti-Western views” of Alexander Cockburn, Noam Chomsky and Gore Vidal is giving me the creeps big time. I guess you do what you’ve gotta do to get ahead — and repudiating the left has long been a traditional route for the mainstream liberal.
But does Alterman have to make it so very clear how little familiarity he has with the work of the individuals he cites? This really should be an embarrasment to him: “If [they have] ever had anything balanced or nuanced to say about America’s role in the world, I’ve missed it.” Really a laugh that Alterman titled his piece “Straw Liberals and False Prophets” as he couldn’t even be bothered to produce the tinest evidence that his own strawmen bear any resemblance to his caricatures.
I don’t like Jeffy G because he likes to stick fingers into his dog in places that most people would find a slight bit disturbing and would usually leave to a vet. Jeff, however, is proud of his sexual deviation.
Wait! I get it, Jeff is an intellectual AND a sexual deviant, and THATS why the left hates him, ergo why I hate him!
It’s all so simple now. Mmmmm, paste.
Chiiiiirist, I am assuming that by writing something that stupid he is using irony… I say give him the benefit of doubt… if not that he deserves our pity, cause he just made me feel smart.
Boy, you have never been more wrong, Brad. My philosophy roundtable lives for the poo and penis jokes I yoink from youse guys.
And subtext? Hmm, how ’bout “Conservatives are not humorless and dumb! It’s only because folks on the Left are so humorless and dumb that they think so! We’re so much better than those elitists!”
The lack of self awareness is truly breathtaking.
I think humour and irony futures just hit a low point.
Yes, but the market for unwitting comedy gold just went bullish.
This guy seems to think the handsome and charming Jeffy G actually has a PhD. Unless there’s been a recent development, he’s what we often refer to as a grad school “wash-out.”
Tour de force, Brad. I had to give up reading whatits’s own words half-way through. The shrill mindlessness of the whole thing nearly perforated my left ear-drum.
wow. you know, the way that ace talks, you’d think that those people who actually go about getting an mit education the hard way (or any advanced degree) would be rock-solid conservatives, sneering at the pretentious, pseudo-intellectual know-nothings of the left. it’s funny, then, that it so often seems to work the other way. for example, i’m personally obtaining an mit education the hard way now, and i can report that conservatives are few and far between around here. and i do believe that things are pretty similar at most institutions of higher education (all of which are, as we know, overflowing with dangerous professors).
oh, and it’s not “the politics is personal”, it’s “the personal is political” (which has, incidentally, a very different meaning which is not amenable to ace’s pop psychology treatment of the left). given that ace has apparently never talked to an actual leftist, though, it’s not surprising that he messed that up.
An intelligent being would realize that such a fatuous essay would reveal far more about one’s self than the super nova of straw it’s attempting to analyze — and then hit control-A, Delete.
pwnd
These people really do spend an awful lot of time writing about their hallucinations, don’t they?
I prefer to refer to him as “Charles Krautsucker,” by the way.
Sooooo… is he for or against higher education? Is TEH LEFT!!!11! made up of East Coast Intellectuals or dumb people who have no desire for higher education? Quick! Someone tell Horowitz that there aren’t any lefties on college campuses before he embarasses himself!
Let me try a shorter on Ace:
Allow me to humbly submit my intelligence as I create – from my mind which is educated – this man of straw – combining the myriad opinions and ideologies to the left of my own – who is dumb and mean and doesn’t think I’m an intellectual (which I am not, thought I have a higher education degree).
Need more practice…
At the risk of stating the completely obvious, and not willing to do such a thing myself (too lazy), I must state:
Switch the target and a few choice names and words, and you’ve got a perfect description of The Right.
“It’s one thing to tell someone he’s wrong on an issue; it’s another thing to tell him, impliedly, that he’s evil or stupid because of his stance on an issue.”
As a self-aggrandizing Liberal pseudo-intellectual, is it OK to point out that “impliedly” is totally not a word? I think the word he’s grasping for is “implicitly”.
Just sayin’
Jeezus, I…[Splutters, bangs head on wall, shakes head, starts over]. Just….Jeezus. After Brad got done with it, there’s just not that much to say. So I’ll point out to this clown that my politics move more to the left every year because I have had the “opportunity” to see much suffering in my life. And I find that I actually care about PEOPLE. And I don’t want to see them living in poverty, going to bed hungry, being oppressed and denied health care, education, even clean water. I also don’t like to see them killed in large numbers by armies, most especially American armies.
I’d like to tell this guy that it’s really not some huge, complex debate. What do you think the role of government should be? What do you think a nations role in the world should be? What are the responsibilities of one particularly powerful nation? We don’t need intellectuals, philosophers or Phds to help us get to an answer here. It’s really just a matter of conscience. Do you have one, and what does it tell you is right?
mikey
This conceit, usually wholly undeserved, of practically every leftist in the world is what makes leftism so intoxicating for the intellectually insecure, and what makes leftists so easily led and manipulated.Yeah, I admit it, I’m a sheep. Baaa-a-a-a.
The premise of this article is objectively false, as you can see from this search of my website.
Norbizness is actually Charlie Sheen? Um, I doubt that. Maybe distant cousins, though…
DIE ITALICS, DIE!
Good?
Dammit. Who didn’t close their tag?
How about now?
It’s really just a matter of conscience. Do you have one, and what does it tell you is right?
Mikey, his conscience, as is the case with most of the other conservatives I’ve met, tells him “Me first. You last.” Simple as that.
I’d love to know what I did to break my first comment like that. I blame The Left!
Fixed that bitch manually.
Can they ever GET TO THE FUCKING POINT?!
It’s ever so much more difficult when you don’t actually have a point to get to.
Heya, Bradrocket… I think there’s still a tag that needs closin’ at the end of The Left’s comment (/a). Doesn’t seem to matter for Mozilla, but it’s really wreaking havoc with Safari.
supernova of straw
That rocks! It’s right up there with the Stupid-cano and the Lie-tuba.
Shorter Ace of Spades:
I may not be too bright, but at least I accept it, unlike “The Left,” who only believe in liberal politics to seem smart and cool.
Wait! I get it, Jeff is an intellectual AND a sexual deviant, and THATS why the left hates him, ergo why I hate him!
I thought I hated him because he’s a pompous, meandering writer who takes glee in how unhinged are his readers….
ACK! I forgot to plug into the mainframe before I went to bed! I have no idea what to think! [gurgles, falls off chair]
Marky’s comment is the best comment in the history of the world.
I told Brad to write this post.
Damn you Noam Chomsky! Damn you!
Brad, you must break the intellectual chains that tie you to Noam, for all of our sakes!
Hurry!
I’m still waiting.
Jesus, Ace has some pretty serious intellectual envy issues. “Intellectual? Moi? Perish the thought. No, no, I’m just a simple man, despite my advanced degree and the evident intelligence of my discourse. You must turn to Jeff Goldstein, Chaired Professor of Bloviation, for real intellectual enlightenment.”
“Why is humor and irony so common on the right and so hard to find on the left?”
Seriously, that is the funniest thing I’ve ever read. (Some multi-leveled irony going on here)
True dat, b. “Heh, indeed” doesn’t qualify as humor or irony.
^Thirded. I can’t thin of one conservative comic other than the unfunny Dennis Miller.
Really a laugh that Alterman titled his piece “Straw Liberals and False Prophets� as he couldn’t even be bothered to produce the tinest evidence that his own strawmen bear any resemblance to his caricatures.
Yeah, you would think that when all the reflexive anti-Chomsky rantings of so many sensible liberals can be lifted straight out of David Whore-O-Witz’s book, it might induce them to rethink their knee-jerk assumptions.
Thirded. I can’t thin of one conservative comic other than the unfunny Dennis Miller.
Don’t forget unfunny comedian Larry The Cable Guy and unfunny humorist P.J. O’Rourke.
Don’t forget unfunny comedian Larry The Cable Guy and unfunny humorist P.J. O’Rourke.
O’Rourke was damn funny back in the day.
I believe you’re also ignoring the vast contributions to humor of Richard Cohen.
Just a couple of comments that haven’t been beaten into the ground yet::
It’s not merely gay marriage which is being argued against; it’s their value as human beings that is being uncouthly denigrated.
You know what? The arguments against gay marriage largely consist of “Those queers have little or no value as human beings”. Often, gay people are compared to animals in these discussions, as in, “If we let fags marry, what’s next? Man-on-box-turtle?”
So, yes, that’s actually how it is perceived by many gay people, and it’s not like we’ve missed the point or anything. That is the point.
Also, there’s very little more amusing than watching people get outraged at the occasional death threats against LGM commenters. I’m pretty sure they’re a net exporter.
Kids these days! They have no sense of their own history.
Who remembers the glory days of alt.tasteless, circa 1994, home of “Save the Choad!”?
Shteatrfrk knew how to tell a poo story – no joke, that, and the Kaka Sutra defined the churd forever as a fecal dildo.
When Emperor Ming returns in his glory, to declare Martial Law for the coming week, the wire brush of correction will again be applied to the foreskin of your collective ignorance.
And don’t make me whip out the clue bat.
I’d debate your point on the merits of Double Dragon, but disagreeing with anyone on The Left will break the hive mind and destroy the entire Democratic Party.
Can’t I just hate Jeff Goldstein because he’s a jerk who makes perverted comments about his dog, threatens to slap people with his penis, and lets his commenters reveal personal information about a fellow blogger because someone dared to disagree with his stupid intentionalism theory? Sometimes a jerk is just a jerk.
Even if the only liberal comics ever were Bill Hicks and David Cross, the wingnuts would never catch up to us.
Lenny Bruce could beat any comedian the wingnuts want to throw up with one arm tied behind his rotted, fetid, corpse. On account of being dead.
but disagreeing with anyone on The Left will break the hive mind and destroy the entire Democratic Party.
How can anyone say this with a straight face? It’s like saying the sky is yellow with mauve stripes. I sure don’t see Pelosi marching in lockstep with Feingold and Conyers. Democrats can’t seem to agree on anything; that’s why they’ve mounted no real opposition whatsoever to the most unpopular president in living memory.
Meanwhile, out of the blue, millions of wingnuts suddenly came to the independent conclusion that illegal immigration was the biggest issue facing the nation at the moment–the same way these hordes independently invent words and phrases that are absolutely identical to what just got dashed off onto Karl Rove’s memo pad. Pure coincidence, I’m sure.
As another Safari user, I must point out that, for me, everything below “The Left’s” comment appears to be one BIG link to norbizness’ place. But, yes, not in Firefox. That link tag needs closing (/a). Even trying to comment, when I clicked in the “Name” field, BANG, there I was at Happy, Furry Puppytime. I finally managed to do it by tabbing-in.
Even trying to comment, when I clicked in the “Name� field, BANG, there I was at Happy, Furry Puppytime.
A leftist conspiracy! Evidence of the hivemind! Resistence is futile!
And I’ll put my Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert/Lewis Black tag team up against any three rightwing comedians they can eventually find. Sometimes I have daydreams about James Lileks and Lewis Black trapped together in an elevator.
Of course, when he mentioned all the humor on the right, he was referring to stuff like:
Bill O’Reilly’s hilarious invitation to the terrorists to attack San Francisco
Ann Coulter’s side-splitting remark that Justice Stephens should be poisoned
anything by Jonah Goldberg
And Straw Man Theatre, more commonly known in syndication as Mallard Fillmore
Recently, over at Jeff Goldstein’s place, a couple of commenters who teach at a community college had their real identities exposed. Both hubby and wife have real doctorates, while Jeffy explained, somewhat desperately, that he was an ABD (all but dissertation) from Cornell. I wrote a post asking why he and his sycophants found community colleges such a source of high hilarity, and got fragged. I believe I’ve posted a comment twice at his blog. The first time I was called “blindingly stupid,” and the second time one of Jeff’s krew said that my comment was “the stupidest thing you’ve ever said here.”
So if you’re truly masochistic, Paste Wisdom is the place for you!
Goldstein is *not* ABD from Cornell, he went to a summer program there for two summers. He was a grad student and instructor at the University of Denver.
Reminds me of Harvard Blogger, Adam Yoshida.
If one is smart, then one believes in progressivism.
If one believes in progressivism, then one is smart.
Those are the two assumptions that prop up their sense of self worth, and they are refuted by examples of smart people who don’t believe in progressivism.
Actually, only the first of these premises would be refuted that counter-example. Although it was clear long before that point that logic isn’t Ace’s strong suit. Or contact with reality.
Wow! That was a whole straw army that Ace routed there, right before our eyes. Excuse me, while I go scrub my eyes with bleach. I’ll be right back.
…
There, that’s better. Now, I am in no way an intellectual. I do, however, consider myself passably smart. I knew, for example, that attacking Iraq was just plain dumb. I know that, if you want to reduce terrorism, you have to eliminate terrorists faster than you create new terrorists. I know that the earth is warming, and that the warming is anthropogenic. I know that tax cuts basically always increase defecits. No intellectualism here, just basic walk-and-chew-gum-at-the-same time kind of brains.
What I don’t understand however (and maybe I would if I were as smart as Ace, or had an advanced degree in something practical) is how the right can say the left has a “hive mind.” Sheesh. It was Will Rogers who said, “I don’t belong to an organized political party. I’m a Democrat.” Just look at how times in Congress every Republican votes the same way compared to how many times every Democrat votes the same way. The Democratic party is one giant fractious cat fight.
And still the Right pushes the meme of the hive mind. O’Reilly and Limbaugh trot it out all the time. It’s almost as if there’s a “Noam Chomsky” of the right who is telling them all what to believe, and they dutifully believe it and repeat it as gospel. Ah, but that would be just too ironic.
Perhaps I am trying to overanalyze. There is a single word that dispenses with all of Ace’s arguments: projection.
Well, there was that time when Ron Silver asked me to pull his finger. Oh how we laughed!
tigrismus, you made my day! Thank you, sweetie! I didn’t know that Jeff-O was a bitter adjunct at DU as well as a grouchy househusband.
Now all, please join me in a chorus of “Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead,” by my honeyboy, the late Warren Zevon:
I was working on a steak the other day
Saw a body at the Rattlesnake Cafe
Dressed in black, tossing back a shot of rye
Talkin’ about things to do in Denver when you die…
You won’t need a cat to find a priest
Maybe you can find a place to stay
Somewhere where they never change the sheets
You’ll just roll around Denver all day
Wait…
I…
*scratches head*
Now, this is a blogger from the right, correct?
Aaaaand… this is the same right wing blogosphere that gets all its news from the right wing media, correct?
Aaaaand… the right wing media, for years, has reported most of its politics practically verbatim from GOP talking points memos, correct?
…and he’s saying the LEFT has a hive mind?
Jesus, he should read some Daily Howler. The number of times _exactly_ the same talking point pops up from _nowhere_ and appears simultaneously on Fox, Rush, and the rest of the Right Wing Wank, usually with identical buzzwords and catchphrases, to be dutifully echoed by the right wing blogosphere…
As usual, this guy is indulging in totally baseless ad hominem attacks because, frankly, he knows he can’t win with logical argument.
[…] A. “Cool Facts About Dick Cheney“, Ace B. “Hail to the Chief“, Buttrocket C. “I Lurve You, Jeff Goldstein“, Ace D. “Intercourse Interview with John Bolton“, Atlas Juggs E. “Why Won’t You Love Me, Hugh Hewitt?“, Serious Journalist Mark Halperin […]