Oh Hai Fish, How’s Your Barrel?

A dumbass teenager, you say? Unpossible!

Tal Fortgang, The Princeton Privilege:
Checking My Privilege: Character as the Basis of Privilege

Ok, let’s be frankly honest. Today’s post isn’t shooting fish in a barrel, it’s shooting fish in a barrel with a fucking rocket launcher that is loaded with fish-seeking rockets and the entire barrel is loaded with land-mines and the fish are genetically engineered to jump towards weapon fire. This is such easy mode, I might as well be going through life as… well, the exact type of person who wrote today’s post. Not to suggest that this job is difficult on average. I mean, I’m mocking wingnuts. If I wanted a challenge, I’d just survive my day-to-day life instead.

But even so, today’s post involves a student conservative paper (already we’ve dropped the difficulty to Liverpool versus a drunken pub team). Not only that, but it’s an opinion piece written by a freshman (easier than some peoples’ mothers), staggering blinking into the daylight of a slightly more general culture and education (I mean, let’s be honest, it’s still Princeton) from their cocoon of immense wealth and privilege (and what does it say when going to fucking PRINCETON is a change that makes one more aware of the experiences of a general community, I mean, holy fuck, is this kid Richie Rich). And on top of that, it’s a staggeringly lucky malcontempt who will likely fail upwards into a vice presidency at his daddy’s company after graduation whining about how mean it is that people notice he has privilege (fuck working, time to kick off my shoes and take the rest of this post off. It officially writes itself).

Well, hell, seeing as how I recently took off whole minutes this week in derelict laziness, let’s set the post-writing software to automatic and take the rest of the day off.

Shorter (or the last port before Jungle):

  • My life is so scrubbed clean of even the barest glimpse of hardship that the slightest commentary on my immense wealth and privilege feels like a combination of Hitler’s extermination of the Jews and the Trail of Tears. Somehow, I’m convinced that this reaction will make it less not more likely that I’ll be considered an overprivileged fuckstain on the couch of reality.

Oh hey, before we dive into this tailor-made piece of self-fail (which pretty much every snarky bastard on the planet has already skewered and left flopping on the table for me), we should talk about being a young Ivy-Leaguer slightly suspicious that your daddy’s name might have been more responsible for your admission than any real qualifications…

Basically, we’re looking forward to the flowery language apocalypse. A desperate attempt to use an easy turn of prose or a smattering of “big words” to stand in for an absence of ideas or merit. It’s something we see a lot in the more “intellectual” conservatives. Those morons who think aping the style of “dem dere smart people” will somehow add careful consideration and genuine research into their gut feelings of disgust at the existence of non-straight, non-white people in the world.

Buuut, college freshman take that and ramp it up to 11. A sad remnant of the requirements of most college application processes and a desperate and misinformed urge to prove oneself with the jaded shell-shocked soon-to-be-graduates looking at their job prospects and falling into blackest despair.

In short, they’re kids. And this kid is no different. An 18 or 19 year old, just barely peeking his little nose from outside a lifetime of strict regimented control and expressing viewpoints he’ll probably be embarrassed by a scant few years later…

Eh, fuck youth.

Let the immolation begin!

There is a phrase that floats around college campuses, Princeton being no exception, that threatens to strike down opinions without regard for their merits, but rather solely on the basis of the person that voiced them.

Scandalous! Silencing based on who the person is rather than what they said. Treating a comment as unimportant or lesser informed despite great awareness on the topic simply because of the race, gender, or sexuality of the person who stated it?

Why that’s completely unheard of and shocking what happens literally all the fucking time to marginalized group members, especially when they are talking about their own life experiences of oppression. I mean, fuck, if I had a dime for everytime someone was tut-tutted by some ignorant fuck when they tried to talk about the specific life experiences of being trans* or black or a sex worker or whatever because clearly the dominant person should know more about what people actually live than the people who live it… well, let’s say, scrounging enough to afford to eat would no longer be in my sphere of life concerns.

And it’s hilarious that he’s a) trying to erase those same voices that are actually silenced so he can whine about them not treating his latest opine on what he thinks being like one of “those people” are like as if it was the golden feces of Midas while b) trying to pretend that commenting on privilege (which is entirely about what someone says) is somehow the same type of silencing he’s trying to continue to push.

I mean, does this idiot really think sneaky minority members are hiding around corners waiting for well-meaning dominant group members to walk by talking about… I dunno, the latest league positions of the Danish Superliga (I mean, fuck, FC Midtjylland, do you have to fuck up every title push you ever make at the end of the season?!?) so as to jump out and yell the hateful slur “privilege” at them?

Cause if so, I apparently need to go to Princeton, because that sounds awesome.

And if there were ever a more deserving target of that sort of drive-by, well, then, Tal is still going to make a run for consideration.

“Check your privilege,” the saying goes, and I have been reprimanded by it several times this year. The phrase, handed down by my moral superiors, descends recklessly, like an Obama-sanctioned drone, and aims laser-like at my pinkish-peach complexion, my maleness, and the nerve I displayed in offering an opinion rooted in a personal Weltanschauung.

Yes.

You heard that right. Being called out for saying an insensitive thing and tripping over your own privilege is apparently exactly like being murdered by a US Military drone.

I… I’m sorry, but I’m starting to fucking love overprivileged people try and whine about their “problems”, because it is never not abso-fucking-lutely ball-slappingly hilarious. I mean, the over-the-top whine and the imagery of great and personal suffering for having suffered the indignity of having someone go “dude, maybe cork the ‘jokes’ about what black people are like until our one black member goes home” on very rare occasion.

I mean, that’s hilarious enough, but I think my favorite part is the way you can see their little minds halfway through trying to process the intense (to them) pain of being told no for the first time in their well-fed lives and realizing how short it comes in the grand-history of suffering and so looking to latch onto greater tragedies to make their personal snowflake suffering seem just as note-worthy. It’s not enough that they had to deal with processing being looked at like a bigot instead of having people lining up to kiss their ass over their hilarious “hobo” jokes for fear of dooming their entire family economically if they don’t for the first time EVAH, it also must be way worse than whatever those filthy lesser creatures babble on about after the initial “that seems really privileged, because…” thing they do.

I mean, it’s so clear, even they don’t believe that this is the life-ending tragedy they feel it is, but they are so unused to negative feelings of any kind owing to their immense privilege that the novelty drives them forward into complete fail territory.

And it’s just a sort of macabre version of wonderful.

“Check your privilege,” they tell me in a command that teeters between an imposition to actually explore how I got where I am, and a reminder that I ought to feel personally apologetic because white males seem to pull most of the strings in the world.

And the stern SS Officer turned to the handsome young American man bound tight to his chair, sneering his nazi sneer at all that is good and wholesome corn-fed Iowa as he coldly intoned “Check. Your. Privilege.”

And other excerpts from his hope diary.

Also, dipshit, you aren’t being asked to apology for dominating the world and preventing any of us “others” from having a look in on participation in the system (but now that you mention it, a fruit basket on occasion would be appreciated). You’re being asked, or rather being informed on when you’re wandering into the land-mines of being a dick simply because you did not have the joy of growing up and surviving in America as a minority member.

It’s a means of going “hey now” to a friend and asking them to think before they accidentally injure or insult a person of another background and bring down a metric shit-ton of well deserved shit for being an ignorant asshole.

And the fact that you apparently can’t distinguish “hey you, Asshole McMansion, stop doing X that hurts people” from “I should apologize for my whole race” rather slams home how little you understand the concept you want to feign offense about.

I do not accuse those who “check” me and my perspective of overt racism, although the phrase, which assumes that simply because I belong to a certain ethnic group I should be judged collectively with it, toes that line.

BWAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh, yes, Whitey McWhiteBread, how generous of you not to try and accuse those people calling out your racist bullshit of racism because you apparently think being called out on douchebaggery is the same as bigotry against your “race”. Yeah, uh huh, or even your Fox News watching, “reverse racism” cheering Young Libertarians Club is dimly aware of how little you want to stand for those “viewpoints” in daily life as it basically makes you look like the white-hood-collecting asshole that you were raised by.

But hey, nice dismount when you realized that your trajectory had you on course to flattening your face on the mat. 7/10

But I do condemn them for diminishing everything I have personally accomplished, all the hard work I have done in my life, and for ascribing all the fruit I reap not to the seeds I sow but to some invisible patron saint of white maleness who places it out for me before I even arrive. Furthermore, I condemn them for casting the equal protection clause, indeed the very idea of a meritocracy, as a myth, and for declaring that we are all governed by invisible forces (some would call them “stigmas” or “societal norms”), that our nation runs on racist and sexist conspiracies. Forget “you didn’t build that;” check your privilege and realize that nothing you have accomplished is real.

Unnnnnggghhh, you guyyyyyyysss, I totally worked like really hard to get accepted into an Ivy League and my entire self-esteem is based in the transparent lie that everyone must not work as hard as me, which is why I deserve the flotilla of advantages I benefit from entirely because of my social position, gender, and race.

It shouldn’t, like, be a thing if I demand the entire world conforms to my delusions to protect my worldview and self-esteem, because like that’s your role as inferior filthy poor people and meaningless bitches. AIIEEEE, MOMMMEEE the PC police are attacking me again.

Also, seriously, what’s with all the ultra-rich fucks asking us to play along with their LARPing fantasies. Hey, dipshit, I didn’t consent to this fucking scene and I’m going to have to ask for the standard high end sex worker rate if you expect me to keep playing along (and yes, that’s per hour).

But they can’t be telling me that everything I’ve done with my life can be credited to the racist patriarchy holding my hand throughout my years of education and eventually guiding me into Princeton.

Well, seeing as how your demonstration of competency is… lacking to say the least… Yeah, I’d say that pretty much the only reason that you are wandering into Princeton without like, a plan for what you wanna do is because of your wealth and skin color and gender and having a background in “respected” private schools that are a breeder ground for Ivys.

I’m not saying you didn’t work hard by your perspective or do the standard high school nerd shit necessary and sacrificed your social life for good grades and shiny extra-curicculars, but it’s the reason that you were able to expect to go to an Ivy with your good grades, while that brilliant poor black trans*-lesbian who goes to a “bad school” and has just the same grades as you is having to turn down their local community college because they can’t afford it. And there’s a massive wealth of bullshit that ensures your job prospects will never be like those of us on the ground even when we work 17 times as hard as you, that you will never be discriminated out of a job because of any of your traits, and assures you will probably have less mental health issues on average related to instances of trauma.

You are, in all possible definitions of the term outside of religious because fuck Calvinism, blessed and get to wander through life on easy mode, never even having to be aware of how much those intrinsic qualities aid you and how hard those others actually work to be given a hundredth of the same opportunities at best.

Even that is too extreme. So to find out what they are saying, I decided to take their advice. I actually went and checked the origins of my privileged existence,

What follows is a long whine about how blah blah blah generations back jews escaping nazis and having nothing, rags to riches story and blah blah blah.

I’m sorry, but I’m tired of every overprivileged whiny little bigot on the planet trying to cling to the one axis in which they don’t have privilege as if that was somehow a “get out of jail” free card for everything and anything in their life.

It’s not.

You can have all the male-privilege and still be impoverished and have little class-privilege. You can have everything-privilege like this dick but lack religion-privilege or “old-money”-privilege (is that even a thing? I mean, it’s not like I was ever even close to hanging out with the social circles that would debate “old money” versus “young money” amongst themselves). And you can be me, trans*, woman, asexual, kinky, poly, fat, in a lesbian relationship, etc… and all the shitstorm that comes with that and still have so much white privilege that I can signal low-lying aircraft with my melanin count and be able to dance my able-bodied way along.

And recognizing those avenues in which I am privileged is a key step not to self-shame, not to self-defensiveness, but self-improvement and self-awareness. Because it is those places where I am blind and clumsy and stupid that offer the greatest opportunity to accidentally wound or be that sort of douchebag that people don’t want to invite to the munch.

And that’s hardly an imposition to my day… but then, I’m not exactly drowning in my privilege to the degree where I have to go three or four generations back just to find someone in my overall family circle who suffered something legitimately awful.

And I’m kinda done seeing people ignore what privilege means and try and escape it as if it was an accusation.

Listen, assorted assholes of the world. People calling you out on “privilege”. People talking to you about what hurt them and trying to explain their experiences are DOING YOU A FAVOR. They are going out of their way to try and give you a free education out of their busy lives. And they are trying to assume good faith in you and save you from the fate of just being written off as an irredeemable asshole. The sort of dick that women and men whisper to each other to stay away from dating or interacting with. The sort of pathetic creature who is viewed with contempt and loathing by most people worsened by encountering them.

In short, it’s people trying to save you from the trajectory you are on, of bitterly watching Fox News in your 90s wondering where the fuck “your country” went.

How you respond to that, what you learn, will dictate whether you become one of the sad trolls thinking Michael Sam playing football oppresses them or whether you become a worthwhile person people aren’t trying to secretly poison. The choice, as always, is yours. And it’s part of the pain of growing up.

I have checked my privilege. And I apologize for nothing.

Or, you know, I’m sure the American Thinker will have a writer slot free for you if this turns out not to be the standard version of teenage stupidity that we look back on with scorn and shame (mine involved some dumbass anti-feminist beliefs in high school).


‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. It’s also worth noting that rants like this reveal that there is literally nothing we can’t reference someone fucking another group over with the advantages they have as a dominant group member that won’t be dismissed by said asshat. That it doesn’t matter what you call it. People still hate being reminded that the world isn’t a big fat meritocracy where “deserving” people get all the advantages and those lesser creatures dying in the street must have done something “really bad” to deserve it. In the same way that a CEO hates to be reminded that they’d literally have nothing if not for the hard real work of their wage slaves. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™


 

Comments: 235

 
 
 

LOLFIRSTIES

 
littleleaguecoach
 

Second the best!

 
 

Mango crop is more literate than usual so I present you all with a rare treat: the wise mango.

You are wise beyond your years, my friend…….

Now, go forth after you graduate and make a difference in the world. Keep that spirit alive by living your life the same way and continue to pass on your “privilege” to your children and grandchildren.

Thank you for standing up for what you believe in and welcome to the brotherhood.

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

descends recklessly, like an Obama-sanctioned drone,

Yah, “recklessly” is not the way those things descend. Boy, you need to check your privilege.

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

Also, FIRST you tired twats don’t count.

Er, what? What privilege I AM WOUNDED!!!

 
 

Once again a conservative thinks he personally invented the concept of work.

 
 

And the conservative seems to think that black folks invented slavery.

One mango says outright that the fact that slavery existed in sub-Saharan Africa somehow means we can chalk the practice of slavery in recent American history up to meh.

Another mango phrases things more…simply: “FYI the first African Americans were owned by African Americans.”

This is a brand new racist meme for me. Has it been around for an awful long time and I’ve just had the luck of not hearing it up until now?

 
 

This kid ain’t got nothing on oppression. I was active in the university gay community in the 80s when lesbian feminism really took one to task. Checking privilege is the soft cushions of torture

 
 

Ho, I was on the feminist end of the Lesbian Feminist Uproar. Your penis may have got you under their microscope of purity; my problem was sleeping with the enemy.
Where my privilege really burned though was in the anti-apartheid movement. I must have been called an “umlungu beetch” in all 11 official languages.

 
 

Not sure what “umlungu” means but it sounds bad.

 
 

Major, Nasty word for Whitey.

 
 

We really don’t have an equivalent word in English.

“Honky” just sounds plain silly any time after, oh let’s say 1972.

Even “Cracker” isn’t really all that bad. There’s really no white equivalent for the N-word in the English language.

 
 

This is a brand new racist meme for me. Has it been around for an awful long time and I’ve just had the luck of not hearing it up until now?

Yeah, it’s been around for awhile. Not to say it’s not being continually rediscovered by various racists. And even if it were a valid objection, it totally ignores all the people born into slavery. And the continual “not-really-people”-ing going on to this day.

Also, wtf is it with (some) people expecting descendants of slaves to be ashamed of it? Seems to me the shamed descendants should be the ones descended from the slave owners, who were the ones with the privilege (that word again) of choice, if anyone’s going to play that game.

 
 

It’s not enough that they had to deal with processing being looked at like a bigot instead of having people lining up to kiss their ass over their hilarious “hobo” jokes for fear of dooming their entire family economically if they don’t for the first time EVAH, it also must be way worse than whatever those filthy lesser creatures babble on about after the initial “that seems really privileged, because…” thing they do.

I don’t understand. *I* enjoy riffing on hobos (and have commented on my “hobosensuality” recently), but I’m not aware that privileged Princeton freshmen do. Is this like the “Pimp and Ho” parties some young white college-goers throw?

 
 

What joyful prose. Another college republican boasts to the world that he has nothing of which to be ashamed. He has made it to the rarefied summit of academia as a freshman at Princeton, by steadily treading the straight and narrow path of hard work and personal virtue. He is a man who has made the good choices and stands at the cusp of his reward for virtue. Never mind that his particular straight and narrow path is about 20 feet long, brightly lit and patrolled for those who would do him harm. Certainly his path was harder than that of the scions of the truly wealthy who, one assumes, are conveyed to the gates of Princeton via private limousine. He doesn’t realize that someone less well starred than himself might have a straight and narrow path of virtue that leads to barely staying out of jail.

He is remarkably silent on the fact that making good choices are entirely dependent on having good options. And, coming from a home that valued education, hard work and had the prosperity to back that up gave him an enormous head start. No one, no matter how much of an autodidact, raises themselves. Our bright and beamish boy did not tag his parents out on his natal day, thank them for the fact of his conception and birth and inform them that further parenting would not be required. They fed and sheltered him, they educated him at considerable expense, and regardless of how much of a sacrifice it may have been for them, they did it. Which only means he is not a member of the .001%, not that he has a high score of martyr points in the suffering Olympics. He is blessed in that his hard work was rewarded, and that any of “the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to” didn’t set him right back at square one.

Working harder than the children of our American aristocracy is a mighty low bar. I might have accidentally done it the day after I ate a half pound of cheese in one sitting. Working hard is, of itself not much to be proud of either, as anyone who has ever worked an 11 hour shift for minimum wage could tell you. But despite what theologians as diverse as John Calvin and Creflo Dollar would have us believe, prosperity is rarely the reward of virtue. Any number of well publicized news stories could illustrate that the prosperous and the virtuous are two distinct groups with little overlap. So, even if he is the charity scholar attending Princeton on the strength of his academic excellence at the sufferance of his betters, he is mostly giving plausible deniability to the charge that the ivy league is far more about giving the children of privilege a place to drink to excess with a group of like minded affluent young men and women in a place where they won’t end up puking on the heirloom rose bushes, than it is about education.

The day junior here first begins to regret writing this particular piece of embarrassing drivel, and opens his eyes to just how bad it is for just how many people, will be the day he can start to call himself a grownup.

cross posted at my blog. cause I’m lazy like that.

 
 

One mango says outright that the fact that slavery existed in sub-Saharan Africa somehow means we can chalk the practice of slavery in recent American history up to meh.

How many of those societies claimed to be founded on the high-minded ideal that all men (yeah, that’s another issue) are created equal?

 
 

Love the phrase ‘malcontempt ‘. Might just be accidental. Still love it.

 
 

Somehow a president who “couldn’t stand up to Putin” swept in & hauled 30 million off the mall without leaving a trace.

 
 

The 69 words you’re not allowed to use at GM:

always, annihilate, apocalyptic, asphyxiating, bad, Band-Aid, big time, brakes like an “X” car, cataclysmic, catastrophic, Challenger, chaotic, Cobain, condemns, Corvair-like, crippling, critical, dangerous, deathtrap, debilitating, decapitating, defect, defective, detonate, disemboweling, enfeebling, evil, eviscerated, explode, failed, flawed, genocide, ghastly, grenadelike, grisly, gruesome, Hindenburg, Hobbling, Horrific, impaling, inferno, Kevorkianesque, lacerating, life-threatening, maiming, malicious, mangling, maniacal, mutilating, never, potentially-disfiguring, powder keg, problem, rolling sarcophagus (tomb or coffin), safety, safety related, serious, spontaneous combustion, startling, suffocating, suicidal, terrifying, Titanic, unstable, widow-maker, words or phrases with a biblical connotation, you’re toast

I hate to link to WSJ but here it is

I particularly like “Kevorkianesque” and “rolling sarcopagus”.

 
 

I mean, holy fuck, is this kid Richie Rich

No he isn’t. Richie Rich somehow managed to retain character. Fortgang is Reggie Van Dough.

 
 

And if there were ever a more deserving target of that sort of drive-by, well, then, Tal is still going to make a run for consideration.

this made me think of this twerp who is also the subject of a us chamber of commerce campaign ad, which i’ve tried to find so you can all delight in its awesomeness, but cannot find…and it is great…they call him a ‘job creator’ about 50 times and that he has been job creating for his family business for years…

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

Bummer- Carl Kassel’s last “Wait Wait”.

 
 

The 69 words you’re not allowed to use at GM:

This list fuckin’ rules. I thought it obvious that engineering reports should avoid colorful language. Imagine if you were an employee on your way out, or hoping to get fired — you could write a whole report using little else but these words. Go out in style.

The other thing I noticed about the list is that some of the words really would be merited in the auto business: asphyxiating, dangerous, defect(ive), explode, flawed, safety (& -related), serious, problem …

If a design is dangerous or flawed, do we really want engineers looking for a milquetoast alternative, in their internal communications? Avoiding any possibility of bad PR is paramount, I guess.

 
 

The other thing I noticed about the list is that some of the words really would be merited in the auto business: asphyxiating, dangerous, defect(ive), explode, flawed, safety (& -related), serious, problem …

If a design is dangerous or flawed, do we really want engineers looking for a milquetoast alternative, in their internal communications? Avoiding any possibility of bad PR is paramount, I guess.

My guess for the non-colorful exclusions is they’re trying to avoid exposure in future lawsuits – ifwhen some flaw turns up in future, there will be people combing through reports to find stuff they can say “Aha! You knew of this flaw, yet failed to do anything about it!” about. Trouble with that is, any synonym for “flaw” an engineer can think of, a librarian will have also thought of, plus ten more. If this is what’s going on, I really hope it’s part of a required system (think you’ve spotted a potential problem? Use form 4527-39-a to report it, so our team of dedicated safety people can look at it and agree or not. DO NOT bury it in text in a report! – of course, you’d also need a follow-up system to scan reports for the numbnuts who still won’t do it).

 
 

Helmut: Your 6:04 is great.

I particularly like “Kevorkianesque” and “rolling sarcopagus”

Rolling Sarcopagus also works for BOtB.

 
 

Cobain & the Kevorkians

 
Some guy (non-troll version)
 

Don’t listen to all these Debbie Downers, Tai.

With a little luck and the right connections, someday YOU, too, can achieve the same level of greatness as President George W. Bush.

And if the price of YOUR greatness is for hundreds of thousands of commoners to die in your needless wars, or become homeless due to your policies, well then, tough shit for them.

 
Failure Artist
 

The basic concept of privileges is sound but some people (tumblr) have twisted it from meaning “something you receive automatically without being aware of it” to “an active crime you must kill yourself over”. People are seriously told to kill themselves for being white or male or cishet. tumblr is terrible.

 
 

People are seriously told to kill themselves for being white or male or cishet. tumblr is terrible

That is excessive. You can stop at “being human” for a good reason.

 
 

Also, FIRST you tired twats don’t count.

I’m not tired.

 
 

the ho said,

Wait…are you THE “Teh Ho”?

 
 

The day junior here first begins to regret writing this particular piece of embarrassing drivel, and opens his eyes to just how bad it is for just how many people, will be the day he can start to call himself a grownup.

i like how he compeletly misunderstands what privelige is when people tell him to check his…this thing is like reading a high school family tree project…i also like how he apparently had no idea or desire to learn of his family’s sufferings and history until he went to college…i would think that the home of such a virtuous and industrious family would have been rife with family stories used as parables…also, he literally says that two of his male ancestors just took off and left the women behind…the women ended up being herded to a mass grave and shot…shows you the ‘character’ of his family right there…

 
 

Wait…are you THE “Teh Ho”?

i am sincerely hoping so…

 
 

One mango says outright that the fact that slavery existed in sub-Saharan Africa somehow means we can chalk the practice of slavery in recent American history up to meh.

Apparently “kid paintchips” here never got the “if you’re friends were jumping off a bridge…” speech from his mama.

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

That was indeed Teh one, Teh true, Teh genuine, Teh Ho. He lurks a fair bit.

 
 

What follows is a long whine about how blah blah blah generations back jews escaping nazis and having nothing, rags to riches story and blah blah blah.

I’m sorry, but I’m tired of every overprivileged whiny little bigot on the planet trying to cling to the one axis in which they don’t have privilege as if that was somehow a “get out of jail” free card for everything and anything in their life.

I’ve noted before that it was my experience that middle class conservatives tend to be much bigger assholes than rich ones – all the snobbery and entitlement of the former, plus an additional dose of really bitter resentment – and I always figured this was basically the reason why. The fact that they didn’t have everything handed to them on a silver platter, that they have in fact had to work harder and overcome more obstacles and are objectively getting screwed on some level (though less than pretty much any other 99%er), in their minds, proves that they’re not privileged, and thus gives them a license to be elitist assholes in good conscience.

 
 

And recognizing those avenues in which I am privileged is a key step not to self-shame, not to self-defensiveness, but self-improvement and self-awareness. Because it is those places where I am blind and clumsy and stupid that offer the greatest opportunity to accidentally wound or be that sort of douchebag that people don’t want to invite to the munch.

Pretty much.

Shitty times in the years since graduation, in my case, have… mostly made me acutely aware of just how much worse off I’d be if I’d been born poor or even working class, let alone in a ghetto or with the handicaps that come from being gay or some other form of Undesirable.

Apparently, some people resent having that pointed out to them.

 
 

Because morbid curiosity was eating at me, I went and read his family’s “story.”

It was their privilege to come to a country that grants equal protection under the law to its citizens, that cares not about religion or race, but the content of your character.

… he’s too dumb to realize that he just encapsulated his privilege in one sentence (as well as his blindness to it, which only confirms that the “check your privilege” comments were warranted).

If your family came to America in the “to escape Hitler” time frame, then they emphatically did not come to a country that granted equal protection under the law to its citizens regardless of religion or race. They came to a country where segregation between whites and nonwhites was still enshrined in law in many of the states of the Union, and ironclad practice everywhere else.

While “ethnic whites” (as they used to be called) like your grandparents haven’t had an easy time in America, at the time your grandparents came over, they had it better than ever before – the New Deal coalition, of which they were possibly the most important building bloc, was catapulting them into “respectable” society. In the fifties and sixties, they would assimilate into “mainstream” America and be very well represented in its newly enfranchised middle class.

Nonwhite people had none of that. They would have to wait another generation before civil rights legislation even allowed them to join in on what your grandfather was allowed to do. After that, white backlash – something your grandparents’ “ethnic whites” never had to face after they became enfranchised. The war on drugs gave the security state a license to wage war on black people, eventually leading to the current prison system in which inner city dwellers serve lifetime sentences for “crimes” that are a rite of passage for most suburban white kids (and that they’ll never go to jail for). Fifty years’ worth of conservative politicians have done everything they could to defund the inner cities as much as possible and deny their residents the opportunities that white Greatest Generationers like your grandfather had. And now that even all that’s not enough, conservatives are bringing back (a rose by any other name) the poll tax.

So yes, while your grandparents were no Rockefellers or Tafts, I’m sorry to have to tell you that they did benefit from privileges that were unavailable to large swaths of the population at the time they moved to America – a situation that in many ways has still not been remedied today.

And that’s why you’re privileged.

 
 

The word “privileged” is tough for people that haven’t learned about such things. Privilege is not even a simple spectrum — that would be a gross abstraction of what it typically means. In a society like ours, it refers to different types of privilege that are not necessarily bundled, particularly with regard to individuals, as opposed to averaged members of some group.

But there really are people for whom the term “privileged,” full stop, no substantial qualifications included, is true enough. For them to petition for additional privileges they grotesque, sociopathic. The least-informed among them knows something about starvation, torture, and lesser evils like lack of equal protection under the law. And yet they clamor for lower taxes and innumerable other things.

I am privileged, overall, but a full reckoning of factors worth noting would include some serious disadvantages, past and present (my fortunes have changed drastically, and stand to change further, but I cannot escape the shadow of my childhood). I have decided that it is unhelpful to try to assess individuals as more privileged, or under-privileged, than not. The particulars are more illuminating, and there is no rational means of converting them all to a single currency, so to speak. We should respond to economic privileges in these ways, racial privileges in those, etc. Sticking it to straight white males IS bad, but almost nobody is really interested in that; perhaps their rhetoric suggests otherwise, esp. to some ears.

It is unfortunate that we can’t get to know each other and treat each other as the unique individuals that we are. If we could directly know the people who we impact, and who impact us, that’d be preferable. But that is not the nature of modern society. Alienation is the term in play.

 
 

And that’s why you’re privileged.

Bravissimo!

The word “privileged” is tough for people that haven’t learned about such things.

White straight male privilege is invisible, its beneficiaries (and I’m one) generally don’t even realize that it exists. No straight white middle class guy ponders all the times he wasn’t thrown up against a wall (or worse) by the cops, or ponders the fact that his dad arranged his job interview on the back nine.

Many of us get over it, but we still consider ourselves “works in progress”- yeah, every once in a while, even the most well-meaning of us has to “check his privilege”. To piss and moan about these incidents is the mark of immaturity.

 
 

White straight male privilege is invisible, its beneficiaries (and I’m one) generally don’t even realize that it exists.

As someone (might have been you actually) said: “Being a straight white male is like playing the Game of Life on the easiest setting.”

 
 

@ Major: you ever fly a B-17? I ask because I just toured the Memphis Belle replica and thought it was several different versions of awesome.

 
 

Thanks for the welcome. I shall endeavor to get the spelling correct. Greetings to all you sadlys that keep my husband off the streets and away from questionable haunts on the intertubes

 
 

As someone (might have been you actually) said: “Being a straight white male is like playing the Game of Life on the easiest setting.”

Scalzi’s “Lowest Difficulty Setting”

 
 

Hey, Ho! Thank your hubby for all the food porn.

 
 

Hi, Ho. How are ya & welcome.

tsam, I’ve been on “Sentimental Journey.” Couldn’t believe how small it was inside, & how narrow the walkway over the bomb bay was. Nothing like 12 O’Clock High.

 
 

The 69 words you’re not allowed to use at GM:

I am a longtime fan of literary projects like the OuLiPo, where people set themselves arbitrary constraints like “Don’t use the letter E”, or “Use only the 185 words contained in 46 familiar proverbs” (or for that matter, “use the Petrarchan sonnet rhyme scheme”), and the result is poetry or prose that the author would never have achieved if left unencumbered. So doing without words like “annihilation” and “Hindenburg” is at least a beginning.

 
 

@ Major: you ever fly a B-17? I ask because I just toured the Memphis Belle replica and thought it was several different versions of awesome.

A few years back my wife got me a B-17 ride for our anniversary. There are one or two that tour the country in the summer and give rides for around $400.

When they started the engines it was like being in every old movie I’d watched as a kid.

I didn’t fly it but I got to ride in the cockpit during takeoff. It was pretty awesome.

 
 

As long as we’re playing the “My ancestors were poor and worked really hard” game:

Hey, you know who’s ancestors were really poor? People who’s ancestors were slaves. Not only did they not own anything, they were owned.

You know who’s ancestors worked really really hard? People who’s ancestors were slaves. They worked like, well you know, slaves.

 
 

Privilege can also be so ingrained in the culture that most aren’t aware of it. For example, there are a number of phrases still in common use (though the number is decreasing) that use descriptions and assumptions that apply only if you’re a man (example: anything referencing one’s balls). Women are expected to interpret, and usually do, often witout really being aware of it. But if you think about it, the original assumption was that the only audience (of any importance) was male, and while most of the people using such phrases don’t mean to imply anything, the women in the audience all have to do a mental translation.

 
 

On a frivolous note, I played the “hedgehog snoring” recording on the front page of Cheezburger earlier this morning, and both of my cats became ve-e-ry curious about where that sound was coming from.

 
 

Teh Ho’s very favorite war bird is the B-17. He’s got the damn manuals and everystuff. He got to sit in the pilots seat at an air show. Pretty sure he creamed his jeans.

My fave, fwiw, is the P 38 Lightning which the Germans called the fork tailed devil.

 
 

Loves me the B-17! Pup got me the flight manual for xmas one year and so for “his birthday” we went to Elmira to see an airshow with a fortress. They weren’t letting anyone in the cockpit but since I could point out all the controls they figured I was a lost cause and let me sit up front. I did cream my jeans (shorts, actually).

The great thing about that plane is that is the ultimate iteration of that level of technology (except for the 29) Once the computers and jets got involved it is too complex for my little “three solo flights” flying career to appreciate.

Must take Pup shopping so he can cook for me tonight and give you more food porn.

 
 

On a frivolous note, I played the “hedgehog snoring” recording on the front page of Cheezburger earlier this morning, and both of my cats became ve-e-ry curious about where that sound was coming from.

Squeee!

Curly didn’t do shit. Just kept giving me cat eyes.
.

 
 

My grandfather and grandmother could’ve sent my mother and aunt away to safety when they were put into the ‘civilian relocation center’ in Chapei, China, by the Japanese Imperial Army. They chose to keep the family intact, and it still was when the Japanese surrendered, and camp commandant told his former charges: “Yesterday was our day. Today is your day.” I didn’t have to go to college to learn about that part of my family history.

 
 

This particular plane had the machine guns still mounted, authentic right down to the shell casings loaded into a feed belt. The tail and belly gunner positions were shockingly small. All I could imagine was sitting in there, turbulenc, flak, bullets coming at you from all directions, and my head and body bouncing around like a pinball. It really was something to see. This particular plane wasn’t used in WW2, but did see action in Korea. It was later turned into the Memphis Belle for the movie. They were giving rides for $450. I only toured it on the ground. The pilot was an A-10 pilot most recently.

 
 

The great thing about that plane is that is the ultimate iteration of that level of technology

When I went back to the bomb bay, I saw it had the exact same bomb racks and release mechanism that the B-52 had. When Boeing found something that worked they stuck with it.

 
 

None of the B-17s still flying actually saw service in WWII. Those were all pretty worn out by the end of the war.

 
 

some guy, This is me asking you a straight and serious question, ok?
I just want to know if you, as our resident non-leftie, actually agree with/understand the concept of unearned privilege as a basic social phenomenon. I mean do conservatives in general accept the principle that there is such a thing?
Genuinely, just wanting information here, not putting you down.

 
 

He doesn’t care Suezboo, he’s just trying to score points in some imaginary game.

 
 

Yep, Major, I get that. I just really wanted to know where conservatives are at on this, ya know? Oh, well.

 
 

Oh they believe in unearned privilege all right. They just think it all goes to women and minorities because of affirmative action.

 
 

He doesn’t care Suezboo, he’s just trying to score points in some imaginary game.

Precisely. Pointing out perceived hypocrisy and errors, but why? — This is not a Dennis thing, really. It’s about widespread personal resentment. What is their place in this world, what is yours.

I’m an error-prone hypocrite but I insist on saying objectionable stuff. Which brings us back to privilege. If you’re a vassal, more or less, then of course some folks are forgiven for their hypocrisies and errors (misstatements — they never “mean” anything wrong or evil — think G.W. Bush). On the other hand, persons not supporting a “conservative” social structure are to be judged quite strictly.

The whole thing works because if you know your place and kick down, you need never worry about why you’re on rung Y as opposed to X — you deserve it! Rung Z even says so, for now.

 
 

Karen at the LGM post that links to this one, made what I think is a very good point:

Instead of being happy that his parents and grandparents provided him a happy, safe, and stable childhood so that he could be admitted to Princeton, he complains that people notice that he received all those good things and ask him to consider the fact that other people didn’t have those benefits.

Actually, I thought her whole comment was good, but I felt a little shy about putting the whole thing in.

 
 

Oh they believe in unearned privilege all right. They just think it all goes to women and minorities because of affirmative action.

Modern Conservatism is based on racial resentment. Conservatives cling to the myth of the “self-made man” (yeah, women don’t count so much), while the truth is that vast fortunes were made off the theft of land from Native Americans and the theft of flesh, labor and talent from African-Americans. Meanwhile, the popular culture of the United States is overwhelmingly rooted in African-American musical styles, while the artists who were responsible for the creation of these styles were cheated out of fair compensation.

Meanwhile, conservatives blame African-Americans for things like the economic collapse of a few years ago, trying to deflect blame from the white executives who were actually responsible. They demonize African-Americans at every turn, always have, and always will until they finally disappear into the hinterlands- a resentful minority without even charming folk traditions to entice tourists to visit them.

 
 

Major, CRA : OK, you’re right. No straight answers here. Sigh.

 
 

Conservatives always move the goalposts. I can delete his response, Suezboo?

 
 

Here’s asshole’s comment (which for the record, was not deleted by Major Kong). I will leave it to the other mods to delete this comment if they wish. Note that no conservative website would ever allow a liberal commentor (especially a known troll) this privilege:

Yes, I do understand it, more than you know. I live it every day, but not as described by Cerb, and certainly in the oversimplified manner many here describe it as. I’ve worked my whole career in a hyper-competitive business that’s dominated by top-level firms on Wall Street by people who’ve survived on privilege. They still have to work their asses off and they still have to be very good, or they get swallowed up like anyone else who’s not competent would, but they all have friends who went to their schools and contacts they grew up with. I don’t have that and I don’t work there, so I survive on the crumbs they don’t pay attention to, but the privileges they enjoy are sickening to me. That’s just life, I’d never tell any of them to check their privilege, though.

None of you here have walked a mile in Tal Fortgang’s shoes, just as he hasn’t walked a mile in yours, he’s just saying don’t dismiss him with the stupid ‘check your privilege’ meme, because it’s just another way of liberals telling you to shut up because you’re white and you’ve had everything given to you. And I see it as mainly white liberals who are the driving force behind it, people like Major Kong and bbkf, who do very little to help minorities other than pretend they’re down with their causes from behind their computer keyboards.

If bbkf disagrees with this young man, why can’t she just disagree with his argument and leave it at that? Instead she attacks his whole family and his ancestor’s families because his great-grandfather had to make an incredibly tough decision under the most harrowing of circumstances. What she said was just mind-numbingly idiotic. For what reason? Because she thinks he’s arrogant for daring to write about a stupid meme suddenly pervading campuses telling guys like him to kindly shut up? What she said was anti-Semitic, and no one here called her on it. No one cares what she said.

 
 

I’ll even apologize to asshole for assuming that he didn’t leave a longer comment. Cherish this moment, dickhead, it’ll never happen again.

 
 

Someone you know?

Sadly, no.

 
 

I deleted it. I don’t have the equipment to get wood.

I delete Dennis’ comments as a matter of course, usually without reading them to find out if this is, perhaps, one of the exceedingly rare times he has something other than RW copypasta or general malice to say. The comment B4 restored made some good points, then D had to let his particular animus toward bbkf rip, and accuse her of antisemitism. Since no one living knows how the decision to leave the rest of the family to what turned out to be their deaths was made, it was unwarranted to assume it was a cowardly decision – it was probably heartbreaking for everyone. However. “Not being an antisemite” does not mean “never, ever, ever saying anything bad, ever about someone who also happens to be Jewish.”

 
 

Oh Suez, for him to give an honest answer would require some iota of honest self-reflection. Ain’t. Gonna. Happen. Conservatives don’t have opinions, they have dearly held dogma. As with fundamentalist religion – which must be noted as another trait more common in their ilk than in liberals – facts and reality and shit don’t matter. Pennis brings a lot of additional baggage in the form of burning resentment and not a smidgen of personality disorder but he is none the less a poster boy for the clade. Those who, despite all the privilege afforded them haven’t become Masters of the Universe blame it not on the game being rigged by those whose boots they lick but on the other who have never been able to fight back. Until now.

 
 

Yeah, he’s all about the TL,DR, DEL comments. I felt I owed Suezboo an opportunity to see the answer, seeing as she was acting out of charity towards him.

 
 

OK, some guy, gotcha. Thank you for at least trying – I think I can see where rightwingers are coming from – with a little help from my friends.
As for the trollery – stick it.
Thanks B4. Got it.

 
 

OK, some guy, gotcha.

Actually, that was “Dennis.” “Some Guy” happens to be D’s latest and most consistent nymjack, I’m guessing because the “real” Some Guy responded so nicely to the nymjackery.

 
 

I still prefer to believe that it is ignorance rather than willful malice driving these sorts of things. Makes for less snark but a more hopeful future. But then again I wear rose colored glasses while working for public broadcasting so I’m a lost cause

 
 

Hey, Ho, what’s your take on Carl Kasell’s retirement? I have had a “totes het” mancrush on the guy for a long time.

 
 

I still prefer to believe that it is ignorance rather than willful malice driving these sorts of things.

Yeah, me, too. I am very glad that I was out of my “I know everything and will now be insufferably patronizing with it” phase well before the advent of cheap and easily transportable recording devices and (shudder) the Web. This kid will have this dragging behind him for the forseeable future. If he grows out of his teahadi beliefs, he’ll suffer for it. If not, it could get him a nice, cushy job on wingnut welfare.

 
 

If he grows out of his teahadi beliefs, he’ll suffer for it. If not, it could get him a nice, cushy job on wingnut welfare.

I think he’s gunning for a position with the New Republic, hopefully Michael Mann’s libel suit will nuke that rag from orbit before the kid graduates.

 
 

B^4, I think you meant National Review, don’t you?

 
 

Stupid troll thinks if he keeps cutting and pasting the same post I’m going to leave it up.

 
 

I don’t really care what you say or what anyone else said. This isn’t grade school. I don’t care if little Susie called you a mean name or if little Bobbie hit you first.

If you post something, I delete it. Period. End of discussion.

You are persona non grata here.

 
Some guy (non-troll version)
 

Just a request for everyone?

The troll’s name is “Dennis”, not “Some Guy”.

T’would be nice if everyone who makes comments to/about the troll would call him by his proper nym, and not the one he nym-jacked from me?

Thanks! Love you sadlies madly.

 
Some guy (non-troll version)
 

“the clade”… Thanks for teaching me a new word, Pup Max.

Google says it is originally a biological term… are you a scientist? or is this word already in informal usage and I just never heard it before?

 
 

The Illustrious meffin “teh Ho”™ has made an appearance!!!!

Welcome to the party dude!!! Hope you make it around more frequently.

This “privilege” thing, I will be sharing some thoughts about it.

Oh, and just dumped my phone rushing to open the door for an elderly person (headphones attached, phone on table, brainfart). Reboot successful and music has returned.

And once again the Ho, I can’t describe the smile that crossed my face when I came across your first, and the one that followed the confirmation.

Oh and last but not least, Cerb, you are fucking killing it.

 
Failure Artist
 

Cerb, what do you think of the truscum debate?

 
Reduction ad absurdum
 

The troll asserts that anybody who criticizes anything done by any Jew, anywhere, anytime is therefore an anti-Semite.

Logically, it follows that anyone who criticizes Barack Obama is a racist.

And anyone who criticizes Hillary is a sexist.

 
 

Yes, that’s one of his faults: Instead of making a reasonable criticism of a comment here, he’s ready to stick an insult on a commentator here faster than Cherenkov radiation because it’s all part of the librul hater/hypocrite meme that he flogs here constantly.

 
 

hey suez…i just learned about sixto rodriguez this weekend…influence of yours? i found his story and that of searching for sugar man beyond interesting…

 
 

As I said before Dennis. It doesn’t matter what someone else said or what you said.

I…..just….don’t….care.

I delete your posts as a matter of routine.

As long as I’m on mall-cop duty, you can find some other mall to loiter at.

 
 

You guys sure are welcoming! Pup must have made good friends here.

BBBB, Karl will be a loss to WWDTM. Very nice guy. Did Pup ever tell you about the time we brought WWDTM to Portland and were hanging out with the gang before the show? Paula Poundstone and Amy were very fun to talk to but of course, Pup was arguing with Roy Blunt, Jr. about the derivation of some word or other. And Pup was right.

I wasn’t sure to be embarrassed or proud. But I guess that sums up my life with him.

 
 

Howdy Ho. Nice to have you here “in person”.

 
 

“But they can’t be telling me that everything I’ve done with my life can be credited to the racist patriarchy holding my hand throughout my years of education and eventually guiding me into Princeton.”

Ah, yes. Yet another punk who thinks getting into Ivy League is a major goal in life, rather than being a good place to start…

 
 

What she said was just mind-numbingly idiotic. For what reason? Because she thinks he’s arrogant for daring to write about a stupid meme suddenly pervading campuses telling guys like him to kindly shut up? What she said was anti-Semitic, and no one here called her on it. No one cares what she said.

wtf? how is what i said anti-semitic in any way shape or form? this passage

Perhaps it’s the privilege my grandfather and his brother had to flee their home as teenagers when the Nazis invaded Poland, leaving their mother and five younger siblings behind, running and running until they reached a Displaced Persons camp in Siberia, where they would do years of hard labor in the bitter cold until World War II ended.

strikes me as cowardly…am i saying all jews are cowards, no…THAT would be anti-semitic…fortgang doesn’t give us any background whatsoever, and i’m sure that it was a gut-wrenching decision all around, but it still strikes me as cowardly…you don’t leave the women and kids behind to face who knows what kinds of atrocities…

and for the record, i’ve never claimed to be changing the world for minorities…all i can do, in my limited sphere, is treat others with decency and ask that my fellow whites do the same…i don’t get what your problem with that is, but then again i don’t know why you continue to get your jollies here anyway…

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

I know I shouldn’t but allow me this brief breech of protocol. (1) You think Christianist supremacisys don’t want to destroy the fags? That’s why they went to Uganda – they can’t kill us here so they’ll kill us elsewhere. (2) The US -where we live – is like what, 85% Xian? Idiot.

 
 

Greetings to all you sadlys that keep my husband off the streets and away from questionable haunts on the intertubes

i haz sad that you don’t consider us ‘questionable’…hmpf!

however:

But then again I wear rose colored glasses while working for public broadcasting so I’m a lost cause

this…i also wear those glasses…hubbkf works for pbs, and i also work for a non-profit…but what can i do? last week i was quite vehemently taken to task for being such a ‘bleeding heart’ and told that i really need to stop thinking the way i do…

 
 

http://foxnewsinsider.com/2014/05/19/some-911-families-upset-over-distasteful-museum-gift-shop

There’s a gift shop at Auschwitz of all places. This country needs to stop fetishizing.

 
 

Sorry, Dennis, but you’re full of shit. Sorrynotsorry, I mean.

NO religion goes without criticism here. I’m pretty sure that to a person, you’d find that we all think all of your silly superstitions are silly and dangerous.

Christians take most of the heat because they’re the dominant religion here and they DO hate gay people. If they could get away with burning them at the stake, they’d do it without hesitation. I know it, you know it, every gay person who is not insane knows it. We all know that varying degrees of insanity exists within the church. Some christians are truly great people. As soon as you assholes eject all the fascist theocrats, we’ll lay off until then, put yourself on the exterminate list or quit defending those assholes.

 
 

Terrible grammar aside, go to hell and die, Dennis. Nobody cares what you think. Nobody wants to listen to you. Everyone knows you’re nothing but a crybaby on a crusade to convert a liberal. Fuck off.

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

When we were at Auschwitz we were disappointed that the gift shop did not sell souvenir ash trays. There is no gift shop at Birkenau, btw, so do all your holocaust shopping before you head to the other camp.

The gift shop at the Vatican is a hoot. The nun manning the register did not appreciate our frequent outbursts of laughter. We decided that there HAD to be a gay priest in charge, given the number of Some wonderfully tacky pieces of shit there. I still have my Pope JPII as a giant looming over St. Pete’s snow globe. Alas, I misplaced my virgin Mary glow in the dark flask somewhere along the way.

 
 

The gift shop at the Vatican is a hoot. The nun manning the register did not appreciate our frequent outbursts of laughter. We decided that there HAD to be a gay priest in charge, given the number of Some wonderfully tacky pieces of shit there. I still have my Pope JPII as a giant looming over St. Pete’s snow globe. Alas, I misplaced my virgin Mary glow in the dark flask somewhere along the way.

the holy/sacred place gift shops always crack me up…i still regret not buying the westminster abbey shot glass when i had a chance. the weirdest one was the gift/shop canteen located in the crypt of a church…st. mary’s of the field or some such…they also had a big ass bazaar outside where you could buy all sorts of sketcy-provenenced items…

 
 

The idea that christians are persecuted is just about the most wrongheaded idea out there. Christianity has dominated Europe since they took over the Roman Empire, and the new world since about 1492. The high water mark of Muslim expansion was at the battle of Tours in 732. To claim that Muslim expansion threatens anything significantly more important than the state of wingnut underwear in the 21st century is to be willfully blind to history and current events. To claim that muslim fundamentalism is significantly more dangerous or more misogynist than any other brand of religious fundamentalism is a red herring.

When I criticize the actions of christians, particularly fundamentalist christians, it is because they are right in freaking front of me, not because I am blind to the crimes of islamic militants. Fundamentalist muslims aren’t trying to turn the US into a theocracy. Some fundamentalist christians are. Fundamentalist muslims aren’t killing women in the US by de facto banning abortion, some fundamentalist christians are. Fundamentalist muslims aren’t sabotaging the teaching of science in classrooms all over the US, some fundamentalist christians are. Fundamentalist muslims aren’t encouraging reckless exploitation of every natural resource in America to hasten the rapture, some fundamentalist christians are.

Fundamentalist muslims may have killed 2000+ people in the 2001 attacks, but, that puts them nearly 28,000 deaths behind gun violence, 40,000 behind traffic fatalities, and 337,000 behind heart disease. None of those killers are framed as being inimical to women’s rights and western civilization as well. Specifically, anti-muslim hysteria is encouraged because powerful people find it profitable. It’s a convenient smokescreen for demonizing a giant slice of the world’s population, and getting people to sign on to odious legislation like the patriot act and excusing more wars in the middle east.

So the alleged concern about women’s rights in Saudi Arabia, rings mighty false until conservatives display anything like concern for women right here in the US. Ditto the alleged concern for about the evils of fundamentalist islam until fundamentalism here at home is a curiosity of history. The evils of terrorism are a rounding error compared to the the historic and continuing evils of imperialism.

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

Whoosh. Predictably.

 
 

Teh Ho: High howarya! It’s a delight to see you as a common tater in Ville du Sadlie. You surely selected a fine thread for stepping out of the Lurker Shadows; the commentary in this one is excellent. (Example: Helmut’s immediately above.)

 
 

Christians ate truly great people.

Well, at least no one here has accused them of cannibalism.

 
 

Well, at least no one here has accused them of cannibalism.

Umm, aren’t those crackers at Communion (I think that’s the right rite) supposed to be the “Body of Christ,” and the grape juice (fermented or not) likewise the blood? Because, if so …

/snark

 
 

So the alleged concern about women’s rights in Saudi Arabia, rings mighty false until conservatives display anything like concern for women right here in the US.

Especially considering the motive. The people who spout on about how women are treated in the countries dominated by theocratic fascists don’t give a fat shit about the victims of that fascism. You can tell they don’t because they think bombing them into oblivion will solve the problem.

 
 

VCarl: I forgot about that! I came from a Protestant background, where the ‘body’ and ‘blood’ are symbolic. As I understand it, Roman Catholics take these words as literal; they believe the priest transforms the wafers and wine into the actual ‘body’ and ‘blood’. (If I’m wrong, I’m sure someone will correct my error.)

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

Yep, through the miracle of transubstantiation the wafer becomes the actual body of Jebus and the wine similarly becomes his actual blood.

Now this is obligatory.

 
 

Also, whether symbolic or literal, the eucharist has always seemed sorta weird to me. Confused me as a child: Why would anyone want to eat Jesus?

(((Also fuckety-fuck-fuck you, WP. I am NOT posting too fast.)))

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

Fuck. Opera changed the behavior of the editor wrt ctrl+arrow so that it now includes the special character after the space in the selection. Which is fucking stupid.

 
 

strikes me as cowardly…am i saying all jews are cowards, no…THAT would be anti-semitic…fortgang doesn’t give us any background whatsoever, and i’m sure that it was a gut-wrenching decision all around, but it still strikes me as cowardly…you don’t leave the women and kids behind to face who knows what kinds of atrocities…

It could have been cowardly, but we just don’t know. I can think of scenarios in which it wouldn’t have been. And those people did not have the knowledge we have now, in hindsight. Decisions were made, under unknown constraints, that split the family before history took some unthinkable turns. Not even the knowledge of centuries of pogroms could prepare your mind for the holocaust. Maybe fighting-age men thought they’d be executed if they stayed; who the hell knows.

In any case, bbkf, the worst I would say about your comment is that it was thoughtless. To say anything more would be so much hooey.

 
 

I agree with CRA.

 
 

Well well, looks like I stepped away at both a good and bad time. Good in that I missed another batch of the troll’s ridiculous whining, and bad in that I almost missed the appearance of they mythical Teh Ho!

Welcome! Hopefully one of these days I’ll be able to get up to Portland and actually meet you two in person.

 
 

Suezboo: I admired your attempt to reach beyond the troll’s hyperpolitical and dogmatic bluster and try to understand it. I’ve also tried in the past. Several times. I’m sure you, of all people, remember when the troll announced suspension of its attacks, in honor of Mandela. I hoped to use that to build some sort of bridge, but it chose to continue its noxious residence under the Sadlytown bridge. Anyway, I admired your attempt to understand it. Says a lot about the type of person you are.

 
 

Pins and fucking needles here. http://www.oregonlive.com/#/0

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

Also, whether symbolic or literal, the eucharist has always seemed sorta weird to me. Confused me as a child: Why would anyone want to eat Jesus?

Probably due to that luxurious beard and well-toned carpenter’s physique.

 
 

The gift shop at the Vatican is a hoot.

I just remember walking through St. Peter’s and kind of mumbling to myself “I’m not sure this is what Jesus had in mind”

 
 

WOohoo

Yay! It’s about fucking time we got our shit together.

 
 

Some guy (the real one). You’re right. I apologize for using your nym to talk to a troll . I should have called him by his own name from the start.
My bad – I’m sorry.

 
 

Also, after reading about Oregon joining the 21st century, be sure to check out this post about OAS over at Rumproast. Read the whole…etc., but do drop by even if only to see the amazingly terrible sign one of the Illiterati that makes up that “movement” whipped up.

 
 

YAY ! Congrats to Pup, Teh Ho and all the other gay activists in Oregon for Mission Accomplished.

 
 

Pup and I can’t take any credit for this. My position disallows political activism. We fought the fight in the 90’s. Still, Yay!

 
 

So the alleged concern about women’s rights in Saudi Arabia, rings mighty false until conservatives display anything like concern for women right here in the US.

Especially considering the motive. The people who spout on about how women are treated in the countries dominated by theocratic fascists don’t give a fat shit about the victims of that fascism. You can tell they don’t because they think bombing them into oblivion will solve the problem.

This. Sweet fucking Jesus, am I sick of these people who for the first and last time of their lives pretend to give a shit about women’s rights (or gay rights) when it can be used as an excuse to start carpet-bombing countries.

You do not get to claim credit for the reforms that secular society had to force down your throat and that you fought every fucking step of the way (and in some places are still fighting today). And you don’t get to credit it to your religion when there are Christian societies like Uganda that are still passing laws as medieval as Saudi Arabia’s, and not only are you not speaking up against them, you’re the ones financing them and sending missionaries to stir them up.

You do not get to point to the evils of Saudi Arabia and other such places when you yourselves spent most of the last century encouraging the most extreme versions of Islam as the local bulwark against “the left,” and not when you didn’t discover the evils of these things until 09/11/2001 (the feminists were pretty much the lone voice in Washington speaking out against the Taliban throughout the 1990s. I don’t remember the religious right stopping by to lend a hand).

You don’t get to pretend that you give a shit about women’s rights and gay rights in Islamic countries, and by implication claim that things would be better for them if we followed your lead, when you have the kind of record that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars turned out. Women’s rights, and gay rights, and religious minority rights in Iraq were shit after the 2003 invasion, worse if anything than they were under Saddam. And not because our Dear Leader was shy at all about remaking Iraqi society – he had no trouble abolishing the Army and Ba’ath Party and turning the country into a playground for the Fair Taxers. Protecting women, gays, and minorities just wasn’t something he could be bothered with.

Most of all, though, you just don’t get to bitch about the Muslim world’s treatment of women and gays when the first reaction of your gurus Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson after 9/11 was to snicker about how it was Jeebus’ punishment on America for tolerating so many fagz and uppity women.

 
 

Say, who here’s actually been to Saudi Arabia?

Oooh! Oooh! Oooh! (waves arm frantically)

 
 

Google says [clade] is originally a biological term… or is this word already in informal usage and I just never heard it before?

Cyberpunk authors adopted ‘clade’ a while ago, as a short but odd-looking word with sciency connotations. I remember Bruce Sterling using it in “Schizmatrix” to convey the sense of human cultural divergence in a post-terrestrial environment. So it’s not just for phylogeny phans.

 
 

PREACH IT, CHRIS!

 
 

Say, who here’s actually been to Saudi Arabia?

Not me, but I understand that alcohol and bare boobs are more taboo there than here. YOU GUYS CAN KEEP YER STOOPIT COUNTRY.

 
 

Not me, but I understand that alcohol and bare boobs are more taboo there than here.

It’s hot, dry, dusty and run with an iron fist by a bunch of oil billionaires and religious fanatics mired in the 12th century.

So it’s a lot like Kansas, actually.

 
 

So it’s a lot like Kansas, actually.

I would have gone with Texas, but Kansas works just fine.

 
 

Texas doesn’t seem to have a problem with bare boobs. Go to Houston or Dallas and you see “Gentlemens Clubs” all over the place.

At least, that’s what the guys told me. I was at Bible study.

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

PENIS.

 
 

Texas doesn’t seem to have a problem with bare boobs.

So…Texas is better than somewhere? Huh. I’m stunned.

 
 

Everyone knows you’re nothing but a crybaby on a crusade to convert a liberal.

I’m not seeing any intention to convert. The dude just wants to stink up the venue with Stupid (alternating between rightwing Stupid and criticizing-from-the-Left Stupid, because both are equally good for the purpose); then run little victory laps, announcing that the blog has turned boring and no-one comments here any more.

He’s been spending time at Balloon Juice and LGM with the same agenda.

 
Some guy (non-troll version)
 

The dude just wants to stink up the venue with Stupid (alternating between rightwing Stupid and criticizing-from-the-Left Stupid, because both are equally good for the purpose); then run little victory laps, announcing that the blog has turned boring and no-one comments here any more.

This.

 
 

Well said, Chris. You sound like MLK Jr or someone.

 
 

announcing that the blog has turned boring and no-one comments here any more.

There’s a disturbing level of fixation going on here. Somebody needs a better hobby.

 
 

announcing that the blog has turned boring and no-one comments here any more.

And yet he keeps coming back for more. It’s like the old joke about the guy in the restaurant:

“This food is terrible! And the portions are so small!”

 
Some guy (non-troll version)
 

Yes, Chris, well said.

One of the ironies of Afghanistan is the 70’s – 80’s Soviet-backed govt (yes, the one which the US provided weapons to the Islamist fanatics to overthrow) was the first Afghan govt ever to feature both female suffrage and female politicians…

Which was exactly what the Islamist fanatics (the ones we supported) HATED…

 
 

I can remember Rambo helping out those plucky Afghan insurgents in Rambo III.

 
 

Obtuse dumbass is obtuse.

 
 

I don’t recall all this talk about how oppressive the Gulf States are when they sent me to get my ass shot off protecting them in 1991.

 
 

Bravo, Chris.

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

Chris said,
May 19, 2014 at 22:45

R’amen, brother.

 
 

[…] the firing of the previous (male) editor by Echidne, Echidne again, LGM and The Nation. •And this critique of Tal Fortgang, a Princeton student who’s gotten a lot of attention for his insistence he […]

 
 

Thanks to those who chipped in on my “WTF racism” post @ 3.

We’re getting some might fine taters this crop! The Ho eh? Hey!

“Some guy” I wondered what happened to your nym! Mystery solved. There isn’t some poor aggrieved person who’s going to come and reclaim “PENNIS,” is there?

 
 

Sadlyville has the most magical “uptime” and “downtime” cycles of any blog I read. The timestamp for comments helps round out the mood. I was particularly mystified by Major Kong’s comings and goings for several weeks of leisurely reading, until he mentioned being in a jumpseat in a comment.

 
 

Sieze,

I work a very strange schedule. I’m out on trips roughly 15-19 days a month.

A typical trip might involve riding the jumpseat to work the first night. Flying 2-3 legs per night, usually from around 8:00 PM – 7:00 AM give or take. Riding the jumpseat home in the early morning after my last leg.

There’s usually some time between midnight and 2 AM where I might be sitting in Ops waiting for the freight to be sorted. If I don’t feel like taking a nap I sometimes post at odd hours of the night.

 
Some guy (non-troll version)
 

The troll is nym-jacking again… Major, would you please throw his worthless ass out the door one more time?

 
Some guy (non-troll version)
 

Wow… That was fast! Thanks!

 
Some guy (non-troll version)
 

Oops, another smelly mess in aisle four…

 
 

Pull the other one bub, it has bells.

 
 

Why would anyone want to eat Jesus?

Well, see… we can then digest Him, then poop Him out on the neighbor’s lawn in the Wee Earlies, and the neighbor curses an unknown dog once he steps in Jesus!
.

 
 

I’ve got rehearsals and places to go, fish to catch and kite to fry. See yah all after Memorial Day.

 
 

MK, thank you for clarifying. I’d noticed you had working and nonworking times but that actually satisfies the weird nugget of my brain that apparently really likes schedules. Schedules! So time does what you want it to.

 
 

G’night DA!

 
 

here’s what I don’t accept—the unconscionable magnitude of your obliviousness.

Oh my.

 
 

here’s what I don’t accept—the unconscionable magnitude of your obliviousness.

God* grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

The Serenity prayer — not just for drunks!

 
 

*Or reasonable facsimile

 
 

Every time I see a conservative whine about “meritocracy” all I can think of is this:

Which brings me to this charming vignette, courtesy of blog commenter Harry Hopkins:

“I remember back in the late 1990s, when Ira Katznelson, an eminent political scientist at Columbia, came to deliver a guest lecture. Prof. Katznelson described a lunch he had with Irving Kristol during the first Bush administration.

“The talk turned to William Kristol, then Dan Quayle’s chief of staff, and how he got his start in politics. Irving recalled how he talked to his friend Harvey Mansfield at Harvard, who secured William a place there as both an undergrad and graduate student; how he talked to Pat Moynihan, then Nixon’s domestic policy adviser, and got William an internship at the White House; how he talked to friends at the RNC [Republican National Committee] and secured a job for William after he got his Harvard Ph.D.; and how he arranged with still more friends for William to teach at Penn and the Kennedy School of Government.

“With that, Prof. Katznelson recalled, he then asked Irving what he thought of affirmative action. ‘I oppose it,’ Irving replied. ‘It subverts meritocracy.’ ”

 
 

“With that, Prof. Katznelson recalled, he then asked Irving what he thought of affirmative action. ‘I oppose it,’ Irving replied. ‘It subverts meritocracy.’ ”

So, maybe supporting evidence for the “alternate universe” theory? Because to me, “meritocracy,” means something like “advancing due to your skills,” while, apparently, to Irving Kristol it meant something like “advancing due to who your parents are and who they know.”

 
 

With that, Prof. Katznelson recalled, he then asked Irving what he thought of affirmative action. ‘I oppose it,’ Irving replied. ‘It subverts meritocracy.’

I’m sure he’s against legacy preferences then, since he’s all about the meritocracy.

 
Some guy (non-troll version)
 

More nymjacking and the usual accusatory picayune nonsense.

Major, would you please flush this turd?

 
Some guy (non-troll version)
 

You ain’t foolin’ nobody by pretending to be me, Dennis.

 
 

Seeking understanding here.

Seek a dentist, instead. From this distance, I’m guessing advanced periodontal disease.
.

 
Some guy (non-troll version)
 

Can dentists treat mental illness, JCP?

 
Some guy (non-troll version)
 

Dennis, have you ever considered posting your own thoughts under your own name?

Or are you strictly an attention-seeking pest, as all evidence seems to indicate?

 
Some guy (non-troll version)
 

Good,one, Hogeye Grex. Here’s another classic, in case you missed it… Jeb Bush in the 1980’s commenting on the Iran-contra scandal:

“The truth is useless. You have to understand this right now. You can’t
deposit the truth in a bank. You can’t pay rent with the truth. You can’t
buy groceries with the truth. The truth is a useless commodity that will
hang around your neck like an albatross-all the way to the homeless
shelter. And if you think that the million or so people in this country
that are really interested in the truth about their government can support
people who would tell them the truth, you got another think coming.

Because the million or so people in this country that are truly interested
in the truth don’t have money.”
—Jeb Bush

 
 

Surely we don’t have to reiterate, for the billionth time on the web, why deleting comments on a private blog is not censorship.

 
 

Can dentists treat mental illness, JCP?
Sure can! Just drill out the rotten parts and fill it in with composite resin. Be sure to floss from now on.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

D’Souza just pled guilty, he wanted to avoid the D’Scovery process.

 
 

Wait…that’s for dental illness, my bad.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

Can dentists treat mental illness, JCP?
Sure can! Just drill out the rotten parts and fill it in with composite resin. Be sure to floss from now on.

Mental floss!

 
 

Hey Pup and Mr. Ho: nature had a little fun down here in the valley yesterday. Clearly this is a sign from gawd happy coincidence in support of marriage equality.

 
 

D’Souza just pled guilty, he wanted to avoid the D’Scovery process.

I hope they take away his A’Postrophe!

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

Not at all, gawd loves us! I’ve said it before but it bears repeating. Gawd intelligently designed our erogenous zones all up in our butts, perfectly placed for stimulation by PENIS. TWICE THE FUN Clearly gawd loves us twice as much as you breeders.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

You’ve got us breeders pegged, Pup.

 
 

I got to bed at 7:30 this morning. I asked the hotel clerk to please put me on the side of the hotel that doesn’t face the WalMart because the truck traffic in and out of there all day makes it hard to sleep.

Go through my before sleeping the daytime checklist:

Curtains clothespinned shut – check
Extra pillows under door – check
Air Conditioning set to “Meat Locker” – check
BreatheRight nasal strip (hey, they work) – check
Cell phone silenced – check
Earplugs – check
Sleep mask – check

So far so good.

At 9:30 this morning:

“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!”

Fuck! The fire alarm blasts me out of a sound sleep.

By the time I get some clothes on to go downstairs they’ve shut it off. The damage has been done, however. I can’t get back to sleep.

Now the landscaping service is hard at work with mowers and weedeaters so an afternoon nap may be hard to get.

Fuck!

 
 

Look, Dinesh D’Souza is easy to make fun of. His d’lusions of competence, his willful d’stortion of the history and beliefs of Obama in his d’ceptive documentary, his dalliance with his next sweetie before his d’vorce was finalized and subsequent d’smissal and d’parture from the presidency of “The Kings College”, a d’sreputable d’ploma mill, ending with his d’liberate attempt to circumvent campaign finance laws, add up to a person who is either intellectually d’ficient or morally d’spicable or both.

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

You’ve got us breeders pegged, Pup.

ISWYDT

 
Some guy (non-troll version)
 

An excellent d’scription of this d’ipshit, Helmut.

I will say in his d’fence that unlike many other d’spicable d’umbasses, he has not, to the best of my knowledge, mocked the kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls.

 
Some guy (non-troll version)
 

News flash, Dennis!

This just in!

“Nobody wants to argue with a dipshit!”

 
 

Fuck! The fire alarm blasts me out of a sound sleep.

By the time I get some clothes on to go downstairs they’ve shut it off. The damage has been done, however. I can’t get back to sleep.

Reminds me of a trip I took once to go to SLA, in Toronto that year. I get to PHL in plenty of time, go into the long-term parking lot and watch a train of 3 buses pass by about a minute before I can get to the bus stop. The buses to/from long-term parking are supposed to run at least 3x/hour. Apparently, those were the three buses for that hour (needless to say, that was the last time I used LTP at PHL. I used an off-site service after that). I go to the USAir desk. Oh, no! For that particular flight, they’re leaving out of the Commuter terminal (this was pre-cellphone for me). Walk to the other desk, am informed by the sour-faced person that I am just too late checking in to check my bag, but I could gate-check it. Since that would have entailed going through security and having my (gift from a relative) pocket knife confiscated, and she could offer no assurances that I could make it through security and to the gate in time, I declined. So I’d have to get a seat on a later flight. No, I couldn’t do it at this desk, I’d have to go to the non-commuter terminal. As I was walking over, it commenced to rain. I was outside, of course, as that was the only way to get between those terminals. So I get to the proper desk, and the next flight to Toronto is at 9-something (my original flight was 4-something), and I can’t check my bag, because it’s too soon. Since it’s now around rush hour and I lived 30-45 (non-rush) minutes away, and I couldn’t be sure that 3 buses at once every hour wasn’t today’s flavor for LTP, I was stuck at the airport. I then discover my original flight was the last one to leave because weather. We leave very late, get in to Toronto about 3am. My shuttle shut down hours before, and there’s onky one cab, which I share with another librarian. The cab driver informs us that since it’s so late, there’s a surcharge. Of course. I get to my hotel, which is the one built around an arena, which was kind of cool. I fell into bed about 4:30 am, and at 6:30, yep

Fuck! The fire alarm blasts me out of a sound sleep.

By the time I get some clothes on to go downstairs they’ve shut it off. The damage has been done, however. I can’t get back to sleep.

There was also the addition of an unintelligible voice coming out of a ceiling speaker, followed by the same (I assume) announcement repeated in unintelligible French.

Also, I already knew US Air hated their customers, but the little incident with the desk agent made it even more clear. But what could I do? I lived in the Philly area, so I was stuck.

 
 

What’s that definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result?

Or in this case, posting the same thing over and over hoping that the moderators will leave it up this time, as opposed to the previous 10 times?

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

And Pennsylvania falls. Yippee!

 
 

Some explanation for any newbies we might have wandering around:

There’s Dennis, who does a lot of copypasta of RW talking points (I’ve seen him put up the same one 40 times in about 20 hours, which was about 6x his usual). He also likes to nymjack, so if you see a regular posting something unusually nasty, assume it’s Dennis, and ignore it. All the mods disappear Dennis’ leavings as soon as we notice them, so please just ignore them.

Then there’s DA, who appears to have a personal connection to Dennis. My practice is to leave DA’s comments alone, unless he responds directly to Dennis or I think he’s taunting or trolling for Dennis. Then I disappear those comments.

I tend to leave non-DA responses to Dennis alone, but in the interest of wrenching the conversation away from the troll, I’ll sometimes delete those, especially if the commenter is one I don’t recognize.

Back to our non-troll discussion now.

 
 

I hope that gives Little Ricky Santorum a really big sad.

To prove a point will he let it destroy his ‘traditional’ marriage?

 
Some guy (non-troll version)
 

Yes, and you could be a mental patient, we just don’t know…

 
Some guy (non-troll version)
 

To prove a point will he let it destroy his ‘traditional’ marriage?

I still can’t understand why their traditional marriage wasn’t destroyed when Mrs. S made the CHOICE (and I can’t emphasize that word too strongly) to terminate her pregnancy.

 
 

VCarl: Nice summation of the resident creature. Helpful for newbie lurkers.

Public Works: Thanks to all the volunteers for the rapid clean-up work. Your work is appreciated!

 
 

To prove a point will he let it destroy his ‘traditional’ marriage?

I never can get this. Granted my badly sleep-deprived brain isn’t working all that well.

I don’t see how allowing marriage equality takes anything away from my marriage. It’s not like there’s only so much marriage to go around and letting the gays have some means less for the rest of us.

Now I need a nap.

 
 

Bad choice of words on my part. It is NOT a resident; it is a nuisance. We all hope it will go away. Or die.

 
 

Go away. Or die.

Revised New Hampshire state motto?

 
 

I don’t see how allowing marriage equality takes anything away from my marriage. It’s not like there’s only so much marriage to go around and letting the gays have some means less for the rest of us.

Exactly the point I made to my dad the one time he made noises about how he didn’t think marriage equality was right. I asked him how that in any way affected his marriage to my stepmother (a marriage contracted to make the two partners happy, with no intent to reproduce, btw). He looked thoughtful, and never mentioned it again. He was over 80 at the time, and the sunday school he went to (he didn’t attend the services, just the sunday school) was one of two pro-gay groups at his church.

 
 

Go away. Or die.

Revised New Hampshire state motto?

Or a revision of the GOP’s health insurance plan.

 
Some guy (non-troll version)
 

You know what really threatens to destroy MY traditional marriage?

Newt Gingrich’s many divorces.

This fat marriage-mocking fuck has no shame. Why, he even masquerades as being a Catholic!

 
 

Mental floss!

Harrumph
Not to be confused with Yentl floss, which is Barbra Streisand in a thong.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

Good to see Kliban cartoons more often on the t00bz. Now I’m off to Brooklyn yo drink beer and listen to a microbiology lecture.

Ciao 4 niao!

 
 

That was a very needed nap. I can probably get a couple hours sleep in Indianapolis later tonight so I might just make it through until morning.

This is what I call “Getting my sleep on the installment plan”.

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

Pupienus telling us over and over what his sex is like..

Someone is jealous.

 
 

Naps – those delightful surprise sunflowers in the lawn of life.

 
 

I think, rather than merely deleting everything Dennis says, it would be funnier for the mods to create a mock thread on Sadly No and transfer every single comment he makes over there, endless repetitions and all. The result would be an amazing epic hypnotic one-man Beckett play of butthurt.

 
 

Failure Artist way up thread-

I had to look up what truscum even were which tells you how out of touch I am with the tumblr trans* community. However, that doesn’t mean I haven’t unfortunately encountered trans* people who had those views that only people who experience dysphoria (and intend to transition to correct it) should be called trans and fuck everyone else in the transgender umbrella.

My personal viewpoints are that this is fucking stupid and stinks of the punching down that inevitably seems to happen as groups slowly gain rights. Like the lesbian separatist groups that started to be all about hating on trans* women or the few black groups that decided to go anti-gay.

But then, I’ve nearly always supported greater acceptance of umbrellas and being welcoming as a community as I see it as creating better community spaces that are not “taken over” by the “other” as is so often feared. The asexual community for instance has greatly benefitted by being open to grey-asexuals and demisexuals. And every community that’s begun playing the “real true” card has turned out to be a piece of shit rather quickly. And that’s especially true the last time transsexuals tried to split from the rest of the trans* community and hold themselves up as “superior” in the form of some horrible Harry-Benjamin shit that fucked over a lot of specifically transsexual men and women who were forced to adopt exaggerated gender markers or hide their sexuality in order to fit into an established group and that left a lot of the trans* community out in the cold when things like the AIDS crisis or state-supported violence swept through and crushed a lot of people.

We as a trans* community are stronger when we include and protect genderqueer people, agendered people, and yes, even cross-dressers as our own than when we enforce this crap over who is a “real” trans* people. And I don’t have much to do with people who want to seal the doors behind them.

And all the blather about prominent drag performers shitting on the trans* community is not a justification, but an infuriating thing in its own right and mostly is a problem because our brain-dead media seem to think that drag and cross-dressing are synonymous and more importantly a stand-in for the entire trans* community. And that, nor the fact that RuPaul is an asshole, will be solved by shitting on anyone that doesn’t fit some gatekeeper’s notion of what being a real “tru” trans* person is like.

But that’s a lot of inside baseball for many so tl;dr is that the human race could progress so much further if it wasn’t for this reflexive desire to punch down where one can.

 
Canadian Version
 

I’m glad we have a single-payer health care system. The American Version still sucks.

 
 

The truthy is, Dennis is a Bible storyDavid, baldly taking on the Goliath of librul grope-think with his slingshit pebbles. Dennis is truely a Conservative Hero for spending every waking moment of his life at this site and pointy out all thje defects of librul thinking and hippocrisy. I salute you, Dennis, as a bother in arms!

 
 

Sadlies know that I usually remind people to observe the “Do Not Feed the Creature” sign by the Sadlytown Bridge.

Here’s a topic proposal for other Sadlies, most especially the posters and Public Works volunteers. Howsabout for one thread, we make Dennis the focus and tear the little shit a new asshole? I’m thinking carpetbombing and Arc Light nasty. Nonestop, raw, rude mockery from every commenter and from every direction. A one-thread Extravaganza of butt-hurt for Pennis, with everybody piling on. Thoughts?

 
 

GRAAAARRR FY WP. How do you guys deal with this? Posting too fast.

Thank you to the kind volunteers, and to all bearers of institutional knowledge. I didn’t ever real understand the relationship between Dennis and other folks so that is helpful. Typical: I have a question. Anyone wanna take a hack at explaining @ 3:39? I swear I’ve been wondering about that poster idly for about a year.

MK I am impressed by your nap kit. You truly intend for your stone to go unturned.

Cerb, I for one enjoy your accounts of inside baseball. Listening to you talk both about your daily experiences as a woman and about what I’d consider the more academic points of gender diversity has gradually made me a better human. In medical circles understanding of gender-related conditions really lags in the general population of healthcare providers. There are specialists who know what is up but people providing basic care don’t even know the simple stuff, like how to ask a patient about pronouns. I try to be an educator to my colleagues but in order to be an educator you have to get educated. You keep educating and I’ll keep reading.

 
 

Seize, we used to have a troll named Gary Ruppert. He started his effusions with “the fact is..” and was a real pest.
So, everybody started using his nym and pretending to be him and using his style and his “thinking” until he got discouraged.3:39 is Fenwick, very lightly disguised as Gary Ruppert, our ex-troll.

 
 

I do remember Original Gangsta Gary, but I missed the point in the continuum when he stopped being a nuisance and became a meme. Thanks Suezboo.

 
 

I like to associate Fenwick with his appreciation of fine herbs and his lack of faith in the two party system. Always good to hear another perspective though.

 
 

You know, when I think I have to amend that statement. I’m not sure if I actually remember OG Gary. I think I remember my friend who turned me on to this blog mentioning him to me, which would have been…2008 at the latest?

 
 

Grist for the Photoshop mills? The link actually tells the story.

http://gawker.com/here-are-paul-krugman-s-selfies-1579241114

 
Some guy (non-troll version)
 

I think, rather than merely deleting everything Dennis says, it would be funnier for the mods to create a mock thread on Sadly No and transfer every single comment he makes over there, endless repetitions and all. The result would be an amazing epic hypnotic one-man Beckett play of butthurt.

Golf clap!

 
 

Need to go back and give Suezboo props for this lovely utterance: “Naps – those delightful surprise sunflowers in the lawn of life.”

Also a fan of J Neo Marvin’s proposition to relegate Dennis to a hall of mirrors. Hey, maybe our snarkmistress could charge admission!

 
 

The fact is, the Gary who still shows up occasionally has been mostly only Gary since 2008, anyway. When others are not pitching in for him, that is.

 
 

But that’s a lot of inside baseball for many so tl;dr is that the human race could progress so much further if it wasn’t for this reflexive desire to punch down where one can.

Cerb, once again you’ve hit the nail on the head. The impulse some people have to victimize those they perceive as weaker or ‘other’ is some straight up atavistic bullshit. That’s the same impulse baby chicks have when they shove the eggs that haven’t hatched yet out of the nest, the same impulse that means the runt of the litter never gets any food, and the same impulse that causes grown men to trample women and children in a rush to the lifeboats. It’s nature red in tooth and claw and it is wildly inappropriate in any person or society that claims to be civilized.

Right now we see gay and trans* people fighting for the right to be who they are in public, to marry who they love and to live their life without the extra heaping helping of bullshit that throwbacks to the stone age always want to serve up. This country is supposed to be of, by, and for the people not of, by, and for those who fit some arbitrary racial, sexual, social, stereotypical ideal.

People who differ, who hold to different gender identities, who don’t fit neatly into the binary sexual roles occupied by most of humanity, who are differently abled, who aren’t neurotypical, none of them are disposable. Everyone has the potential to offer something unique: a new insight, a new viewpoint, new experiences.

Humanity’s ‘to do’ list has never been longer. Given the challenges facing humanity in the 21st century, it seems likely that every pair of hands will be called upon to help. And that’s my selfish reason for not wanting people to have to endure victimization and abuse.

But ultimately people don’t exist for my convenience. Any one person’s potential utility to me or anyone else is completely irrelevant. People deserve to enjoy the only life they have without having to suffer the abuse of the hateful, intolerant or misguided simply because they are fellow sentient beings. The deliberate infliction of suffering for it’s own sake is inexcusable. For a country founded in the ideals of the Enlightenment, it sure is taking a long time for the ‘freedom and justice for all’ to be applied to all of our citizens.

 
 

New post.

 
Grayn Ranuppert
 

The fact is the fact.

 
Garyurtrude Steinuppert
 

The fact is the fact is the fact.

 
 

(comments are closed)