Creepy Authoritarianism
Mark Kleiman notes the following quote by Sadly, No! favorite Mark Steyn:
Why did Bosnia collapse into the worst slaughter in Europe since World War Two? In the thirty years before the meltdown, Bosnian Serbs had declined from 43 percent to 31 percent of the population, while Bosnian Muslims had increased from 26 percent to 44 percent. In a democratic age, you can’t buck demography—except through civil war. The Serbs figured that out—as other Continentals will in the years ahead: if you can’t outbreed the enemy, cull ’em. The problem that Europe faces is that Bosnia’s demographic profile is now the model for the entire continent.
Kleiman then comments:
[L]et’s call it by its real name: Steyn is justifying genocide, both retrospectively in Bosnia and prospectively in the rest of Europe. […]
Is there any reason Mark Steyn should not now be treated as a pariah, and confer pariah status on whoever deals with him? Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas. Or have we fallen so far that a call for genocide is all in a day’s work?
Basically, yes. There is a significant, but vocal, minority of people in this country who think any and all measures should be considered when fighting terrorists, no matter how destructive or evil.
Here’s a fun little gallery of quotes that, I think, ably illustrates the bloodthirsty moral relativism of today’s right-wing radicalism:
Civilized societies have found it harder, though, to beat the barbarians without killing all, or nearly all, of them. Were it really to become all-out war of the sort that Osama and his ilk want, the likely result would be genocide — unavoidable, and provoked, perhaps, but genocide nonetheless, akin to what Rome did to Carthage, or to what Americans did to American Indians. That’s what happens when two societies can’t live together, and the weaker one won’t stop fighting — especially when the weaker one targets the civilians and children of the stronger. This is why I think it’s important to pursue a vigorous military strategy now. Because if we don’t, the military strategy we’ll have to follow in five or ten years will be light-years beyond “vigorous.�
[W]e have a couple of choices, and everybody has been talking about being an honest broker, but there’s another choice, and that is to be a participant on one side, with the Shias and Kurds against the Sunnis. The Shias, while they are a bigger number of people, they don’t have the experience that the Sunnis have, but if you combine the Shia numbers with our technology and our support, technical support, we could in fact get a second best—not what we wanted, which was a government that was genuinely democratic, but perhaps a friendly, semi-theocratic Shia government that we had put in power by helping them win a civil war. That’s not a wonderful choice, but it’s a lot better than turning tail and leaving.
History never offers exact parallels, but it does have useful lessons. In assessing manning needs for Iraq, one would do well to look to prior conflicts of similar nature… one might look especially to the Boer War, in which a fractious, semi-fanatical culture was slowly ground into submission by an occupying force — several years after the seeming success of the initial invasion. If it sounds familiar, it should: and so the means of victory there offer an instructive thought experiment for Iraq today.
Make no mistake: those means were cruel. I have stated previously that I endorse cruel things in war — to eschew them is folly. The British achieved victory over the Boers by taking their women and children away to concentration camps, by laying waste to the countryside, and by dotting the veld with small garrisons in blockhouses at regular intervals. The men who remained were hindered in their movements by the wire stretching from blockhouse to blockhouse (a phenomenon that the Morice Line experience has shown would be massively more effective now); they could either surrender or die. Absent women and children, the rules of engagement were lax. From implementation to victory took under 18 months. To accomplish this required over one-quarter million soldiers.
Still, as the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate engage in interminable debate about resolutions whose effects can only be to “damage morale and undermine the military” while emboldening our enemies, it is time to reflect on what constitutes inappropriate behavior in time of war […]
If there’s one thing that really should be a hanging offense, it is behavior that results in our being even less equipped to deal with such threats than we were before this phase of the War for the Free World began on September 11, 2001.
I’ll make a deal with the Left: You wanna impeach President Bush? Go ahead. Knock yourself out. In fact, let’s just go to the polls and turn the whole government over to the Democrats. You wanna run the whole show? Fine. Elect Howard Dean President. End all surveillance against possible enemy combatants, unless you can get a warrant based on probable cause. Withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan immediately. Permanently kill the PATRIOT Act. Do whatever you want to do. I’m perfectly willing, at this point, to do it your way.
I mean, really, what’s the worst that can happen? An American city goes up in nuclear fire? Well, it?ll probably be New York, Chicago, or LA. You know, a major city. I don’t live there, nor do most Americans. So we’ll be fine.
But here’s the other half of the deal: If that happens, we get to march on Washington, drag you naked and screaming from your offices, and hang you from the ornate lampposts that line The Mall. Then, free from roadblocks thrown up by infantile political fools, maybe we’ll get serious about defending the United States, her people, her freedoms, and her values, in an increasingly hostile world.
IF a prize were awarded for the most-improved government publication of the decade, we could choose the winner now: “Army Field Manual 3-24, Counterinsurgency” (MCWP 3-33.5 for the Marine Corps). Rising above abysmal earlier drafts, the Army and Marines have come through with doctrine that will truly help our troops. […]
In the spirit of constructive criticism, here are a few of the gaps remaining:
While the sometimes-you-just-have-to-fight realists are in the ascendant at last, the military’s academic side still has too much influence. You see it plainly in the illustrative vignettes chosen to accompany the text: They emphasize soft power (doesn’t work – sorry) over the need to kill implacable murderers to provide security for the innocent.
The bias in the case-study selection still favors the hand-holding efforts that helped create the current mess in Iraq (military academics, like all academics, won’t give up on their theses just because mere facts contradict them). The drafters cite the anomalous example of Malaya (while downplaying that campaign’s violence), but ignore the same-decade example of the Mau-Mau revolt, in which the British won a complete victory – thanks to concentration camps, hanging courts and aggressive military operations.
The pattern that emerges here is extremely creepy, and it has only gotten more noticeable since the Democrats took back Congress in November. The above quotes bring to mind a great many things, but “conservativism” or, even more laughably, “libertarianism” aren’t among them. The 9/11 terror attacks have created a downright frightening brand of right-wing authoritarianism that will unfortunately be with us long after George W. Bush has left office.
UPDATE: Some of you have remarked that there is nothing funny about this post, and that it is actually quite depressing. As I said last week, reading right-wing blogs has been getting me pretty down lately. If I spend more than five minutes at Glenn Reynolds’ website, I come out feeling like Happy Time Harry:
Though come to think of it, it’d be pretty sweet if I could get a free supply of pills from reading Powerline… hmmmm…
I’m impressed: an entire catalogue of frothing-at-the-mouth warmongering, and nothing from Adam Yoshida?
I tried to keep it limited only to those generally considered “respectable” enough to have loving profiles written about them in the Washington Post.
Gates of Vienna was just too tempting to resist, though, so that’s why they made the cut.
How does one pronounce Steyn’s last name? Is it pronounced “Stein”, like in- “When I’m in the beer garden, drinking with my brownshirt buddies, I like my brew served in a large stein”? Or is it pronounced like “Stain”, as in, “I am a stain on the face of humanity”?
Is David Niewert guest-blogging or what? This post is all serious and stuff.
Time will tell if the American authoritarian right will take up arms or pull some violent bullshit once they’re out of power. That’ll be wild.
“How does one pronounce Steyn’s last name?”
On a somewhat related note, for a long time I avoided trying to pronounce Ayn Rand’s name. Then I heard a fan pronounce it. Yep, that’s about it. Strange woman.
Is David Niewert guest-blogging or what? This post is all serious and stuff.
Yeah, I know. Reading this stuff starts to get you down after a while though. Maybe I should go back to Pastor Swank, who is at least humorous in his justifications for mass ethnic slaughter…
Terrified little bigots squealing, “I’LL KILL YA, I’LL KILL ALL OF YOU!”
I eat gates made of Vienna Sausages for breakfast!
Time will tell if the American authoritarian right will take up arms
You know, a friend of mine posited today that the current sitch in Iraq is analogous to the French Algerian war (at least, more analogous than WWII). Wherein, after the French populace found out about all the torturing and killing the French police were doing in the name of “anti-terrorism,” they freaked out and wanted to end the war. But the former Vichy thugs in gov’t who had beat the drum for war for eight years couldn’t let it go– this was their chance at a do-over (*cough* neo-cons and Viet Nam *cough*)– so they literally attempted a coup to keep the war going, for war’s sake. And the anti-Muslim seeds they spawned have blossomed into the divisive and bigoted French national policies we see today. Just an interesting parallel, I thought.
hokay, back to the jokes!
And–don’t shoot me, I’m just the messenger–this will never end.
There will never be a clearcut, indisputable “victory” over “our enemies,” and every period of quiescence or downturn will just prompt these loons to warn that “they’ve gotten smarter” and “are planning something truly monstrous.”
9/11 + blogs = wingnut military/authoritarian foaming 4-evar.
It’s what I learned (eventually) in dealing with my ex. The operatic indignation, the denunciations, the lectures, the moralizing: that’s what they live for.
What they don’t want is to solve problems. If they did, they’d have been massing around the White House with torches and pitchforks two years ago.
But they don’t. They want to o-pine and posture and use words like “infantile” and “civilized societies” and say things like, “make no mistake” and “a hanging offense.”
The very tenor and syntax of their writing shows how it’s all play-acting and dressing-up-like-Daddy. During which these so-called “patriots” say nothing (or nothing but lies) about six years of corruption and ineptitude.
They’re part of the ecology. Alas.
“They’re gonna garnish his wages!”
Hee hee.
Instead of writing articles from scratch, wouldn’t it be easier for these folks to just search and replace “Jew” with “Muslim” in Mein Kampf? Then they could spend more time masturbating over pictures of dead Iraqi children.
Aside from the bland sociopathy, an assumption behind all that vicious crap is simply wrong, at a practical level. Why do they think that the proper response to terrorism is military force? What has bombing and invading and “culling” got to do with preventing people from hijacking planes with box-cutters or blowing themselves up in coffee shops?
I wonder if they realize that they’re being suckered, or if they are in on it. Do they really think that the invasion of Iraq ever had anything to with “fighting terrorism?”
It’s the ancient quandary faced by anyone dealing with armchair warriors: are they crazy , or are they just stupid? Or both?
with all that said, steyn’s is the worst. Not only does he call for genocide but the language “cull ’em” reveals his feelings that muslims are subhuman animals. Not to mention his suggestion that “Milosevic was right!”
jeezus, and it’s the liberals who are the neville chamberlains?
Having spent quite a few years studying the ex-Yugoslavia and the genocide, it’s sad to see so many still siding with the Serb nationalists. And proud that they’re siding with a genocidal ideology.
Here’s the scary part. This stuff isn’t secret. This is what a lot of americans, can-do sort that they are, believe. They know we can solve this problem, and if a few million people have to die, as long as it isn’t them, well, that’s ok…
mikey
Bradrocket,
Maybe this will cheer you up. A transcript from his radio show of Hugh Hewitt getting his ass kicked by William Odom (a retired general for anyone who’s never heard of him).
I spend way more time than is healthy in right wing blogs myself but finding something like this makes it worthwhile. Still, I don’t go in alone. That’s nuts. But with the white widow at my side and The Coup in the background I’m brave enough.
“if a few million people have to die, as long as it isn’t them, well, that’s ok…”
And yet, if you bring up the holocaust, you’re “shrill” and “unhinged”…
Maybe this will cheer you up. A transcript from his radio show of Hugh Hewitt getting his ass kicked by William Odom (a retired general for anyone who’s never heard of him).
I read that. He beat his butt. It was a beautiful thing to read.
I thought reading powerline was in of itself capable of adjusting your neurochemistry.
Yeah, but its cut with so much strychnine that any fun involved is destroyed by the muscle cramps.
SadlyNo’s server is acting up in a most annoying way.
The scariest quote there is from Dale Franks, not because of his empty threats, but because of how delusional he is. If he is so upset about Democrats in power that he’s planning to drag them out naked (why naked anyway?) and hang them IF WE GET ATTACKED, where was he after we all found out that the Bush administration ignored warnings about Al Qaeda? Why wasn’t he marching on Washington demanding they be held accountable?
Every time I read that quote it makes me want to kill myself.
The Serbs figured that out—as other Continentals will in the years ahead: if you can’t outbreed the enemy, cull ’em.
Is this prat aware that the Bosnian muslims are ethnically the same as Serbs and Croats, they speak the same languages, culturally they’re the same apart from their ancestors converting to islam during the time of the Ottoman empire? Really, Bosnia is not a good model for a clash-of-civilisations apocalypse.
Why did Bosnia collapse into the worst slaughter in Europe since World War Two?
It might have something to do with
— Serbia espousing the cause of a Greater Serbia and sending troops, weapons, tanks to support the ethnic-Serbian separatists within Bosnia. With indirect support from Russia, due to Orthodox Christianity ties…
— Croatia espousing a Greater Croatia and sending blah blah blah. With covert support from Germany, since Bavaria was siding quite overtly with Croatia, due to ties of Catholicism. The German Foreign Minister at the time was from Bavaria, under their right-wing coalition arrangements…
— While the rest of the world clamped an ‘arms embargo’ on the area essentially to prevent the Bosnian loyalist government from defending itself from the two groups of secessionists. The British foreign minister at the time explained that allowing Bosnia per se to import weapons would merely be “imposing a level killing field” — he reckoned that a quick defeat for the loyalists, followed by a partition of Bosnia, would cause least embarrassment for the world community. As it was, the actual long-drawn-out conflict did not reflect well on the world community’s failure to defend a democratic government from traitors.
But I can see that nasty little details of religiously-inspired treason and mass murder do not fit neatly into Steyn’s narrative. The blackguard. The poltroon.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwCULMKZvMw Happy Time Harry is a pretty good way to describe the whole Wingnut Effect on Sane People.
People who would much rather bomb and invade and kill hundreds or thousands rather then implement actual security changes that would be infinity plus three times more effective in keeping us safe.
the worst and most depressing thing about these idiots is that 9/11 was an inside job and the war on terror is complete bullshit.
Isn’t Steyn the guy that liberman has been studying and quoting lately?
is this really just a collapse?
“Here’s the scary part. This stuff isn’t secret. This is what a lot of americans, can-do sort that they are, believe. They know we can solve this problem, and if a few million people have to die, as long as it isn’t them, well, that’s ok…”
Yeah, but they also believe that Iraq is the central front in an epoch-making Clash of Civilizations, and they refuse to risk their pasty asses there, also.
So if it comes down to actually getting out of their basements and fighting, well armed or no, my guess is that they will …. wait and see how the first guy does. and then go back to pushing their eliminationist genocidal arguments on the intertubes.
They talk a lot, is I guess what I’m saying.
“MrWonderful said,
…
The very tenor and syntax of their writing shows how it’s all play-acting and dressing-up-like-Daddy.”
You’ve nailed the reason why I’m always surprised to see pictures of these guys. I’m always finding out that they’re at least 10-15 years older than I think they are, judging by the tone of their writing and the accompanying aggressive posturing.
And that’s not to mention their tendency to reduce war and suffering to abstract concepts, and treat the world like a giant RISK board there for their personal amusement.
That’s why I think the chickenhawk label is so apt when talking about the above pundits. For me it has nothing to do with them being able-bodied enough to join the military and not doing so, for lots of people do exactly the same. No, the reason these guys deserve the handle chickenhawk is because they treat brutal, bloody wars like they are being fought for the chickenhawks’ own personal amusement. They act like cheerleaders, ra-raing from the sidelines but contributing nothing towards minimalising casualties on either side. In fact that is the last thing they want, as that would prevent them getting their jollies from the suffering of others.
the worst and most depressing thing about these idiots is that 9/11 was an inside job…
Uh, dude. Their idiocy does not necesitate equal idiocy in response.
the worst and most depressing thing about these idiots is that 9/11 was an inside job and the war on terror is complete bullshit.
Oh fuck off.
Uh, dude. Their idiocy does not necesitate equal idiocy in response.
If you go to his site his theory is that the flight 93 crater is a phony. Jeeeesus.
the worst and most depressing thing about these idiots is that 9/11 was an inside job and the war on terror is complete bullshit.
Take a bath, hippie.
If you go to his site his theory is that the flight 93 crater is a phony. Jeeeesus.
I swear, he’s a right-winger trying to parody a lefty.
Dude, I’ve met Gary Ruppert, and you are no Gary Ruppert.
Let’s not forget the Man from Fuddles, MN, James Lileks, and his “let’s send all the people who oppose torture to death chambers” plan. What do these people dream about?
“How does one pronounce Steyn’s last name?�
[fuhk-tahrd] is the most common pronunciation.
Spooked, could you show us how the collapse of a 101 story building that has been struck by a fully-fueled 767 doing 600mph is supposed to look like?
The design of the buildings, to maximize floorspace, pushed nearly all supports to the outside walls. When those upper floors started to collapse there was very little between the walls to stop it.
You are not going stop hurting until you STOP watching it over and over again.
[…] isn’t something you can pick up at the market. « Creepy Authoritarianism […]
9/11 truther seems to have the same standard of “journalism” and attacking the “MSM” that you find amongst so many wingers such as malkin, pjm, etc.
when will bloggers get it that journalism requires something more. You know, some real investigating? some actual hard work?
My favorite part is Frank Gaffney describing the congressional debate as ‘interminable.’ Wow. What, 2 or3 days of back-and-forth over whether or not to escalate a four-year-old war, and he’s squirming in his chair like a third grader. What a big attention span on you, Frankie!’
I really liked Trevino’s comment, so I looked up the Boer War on the Wiki.
Gosh, what fun! Independence loving people who didn’t want to be ruled by the British, who didn’t want their native wealth bled off to the British Empire, that’s my idea of semi-fanatical indeed. And here’s the best part:
In all, the war had cost around 75,000 lives — 22,000 British soldiers (7,792 battle casualties, the rest through disease), 6,000 – 7,000 Boer soldiers, 20,000 – 28,000 Boer civilians and perhaps 20,000 black Africans.
So at the cost of 75,000 lives, not to mention the degradation of the British empire through concentration camps and inhumane treatment of the internees resulting in thousands of senseless deaths, the British defeated an enemy of their own creation, in part because of the gold and diamonds in the Boer areas. And greatly damaged their credibility and standing in the world.
And that was a good thing, because the Brits really showed those people what’s what.
Bravo Tacitus, bravo, your bravery astounds me!
The above quotes bring to mind a great many things, but “conservativism� or, even more laughably, “libertarianism� aren’t among them.
Well. Suppose you have a certain portion of an electorate that thinks a certain way. Any group has it’s loonies, but what if – heaven forbid – the loony-toons fringe either subsumes the prior majority, or simply drags enough of them to their way of thinking?
Doesn’t the credo of those professing a certain philosophy, de facto, affect the philosophy itself?
Or more succinctly, conservamatism is as conservamatism does.
Whats amazing is that these are the same people who run around prattling about the sanctity of life.
[…] loving Mark Steyn going rococo for a coconut white colored culture that might not have a future. Sadly the weaker one always wins. So you got to be cruel to be kind, particularly to that kind of […]
“Gosh, what fun! Independence loving people who didn’t want to be ruled by the British, who didn’t want their native wealth bled off to the British Empire…” THEIR native wealth???? WTF?? They were colonizers stealing the natural resources of people they displaced, enslaved, brutalized, and on and on. People, please, let’s stop perpetuating foul, misleading myths about the Boers in South Africa.
According to Gaffney, it sounds like he might have plans to hang Bush, Cheney, Rummie, & Wolfie. After all, they all meet his criteria.
The 9/11 terror attacks have created a downright frightening brand of right-wing authoritarianism that will unfortunately be with us long after George W. Bush has left office.
Herein lies the most chilling aspect of this entire administration along with the power-grabbing that has occurred.
sorry, the 1st parargraph was quoted from the article
Dale Franks… But here’s the other half of the deal: If that happens, we get to march on Washington, drag you naked and screaming from your offices, and hang you from the ornate lampposts that line The Mall.
You and what army, meatwad? And a little runt like you would need a step ladder just to hang yourself from a door knob . After you failed at that I’d beat you like a redheaded stepchild.
Michael Ledeen’s
“Every ten years or so, the US has to take some shitty little country and throw it against the wall, just so the rest of the world knows who is really boss.”
…is just about as creepy as it gets for this resident of a “shitty little country”
Remember kids, David Broder says the real problem with the political discourse today, and the real threat to the nation, is that liberals are calling prominent authoritarian conservatives fascists, and not that those same authoritarian conservatives are promoting fascist ideas.
“Sanctity of life?” The most amazing thing is that these proto-fascist nutcases think they’re defending our freedom, though it’s unclear whether they distinguish liberty and chastity (or any two values chosen at random from the virtue jar).
Oh look, yet another excuse to link to Dr. Altemeyer’s The Authoritarians.
Read it, seriously. Its like getting your hands on Gary Ruppert’s psych eval.
Oh, how very uncivil. Can we please get back to a more civilized discussion like the mass slaughter of the brown masses? My Mint Julep is getting warm.
Actually, having control of the armed forces, we strafe and bomb your convoy of Winnebagos and luxury SUVs.
You never make it to Washington.
We confiscate all your possessions and live a life of luxury forever. Mwahahahaha…
For the disturbingly POLITE version of all of these kind of proto-fascist declarations, and more, smart libs and lefties should be sure to check out No Left Turns, which is based from The Ashbrook Center at Ashland Univ. in Ohio. EXTREMELY right-wing. At least 2 of the bloggers work at Ashland, and the rest are scattered around (Georgia, Cali). They’re all men except one sad, sub-Coulter wannabe, Julie Ponzi. And, surprise, surprise, they’re all white. Their lot also includes global-warming-is-a-hoax, Exxon shill, AEI employee Steven Hayward, who has actually recommended that readers buy Exxon gas, as a blog post. It’s sheer insanity!!
It’s one of the RARE right-wing blogs that actually allows comments, so they deserve a tiny bit of credit for that, I guess. Check it out:
http://noleftturns.ashbrook.org/
…closes italic tag…
[…] And guess who got their way? The warmongers, as they almost always do in the United States at least since World War II. Because it is never about U.S. security, and it’s never been about defending the nation. It has always been about imperialism and authoritarianism. […]
Goddamit — that made no sense at all!! Try again.
Dale Franks… But here’s the other half of the deal: If that happens, we get to march on Washington, drag you naked and screaming from your offices, and hang you from the ornate lampposts that line The Mall.
Actually, having control of the armed forces, we strafe and bomb your convoy of Winnebagos and luxury SUVs.
You never make it to Washington.
We confiscate all your possessions and live a life of luxury forever. Mwahahahaha…
“So at the cost of 75,000 lives, not to mention the degradation of the British empire through concentration camps and inhumane treatment of the internees resulting in thousands of senseless deaths, the British defeated an enemy of their own creation, in part because of the gold and diamonds in the Boer areas. And greatly damaged their credibility and standing in the world.”
Yes, but Mafeking was relieved, hurrah! Oh, and Boy Scouts, too, don’t foget that beneficial side effect.
/snark
I’ve felt that this is their plan all along – it goes along with supply-side economics – so long as we have a population and/or productivity advantage, we win. Anything that threatens that must be destroyed. I would be suprised if a hot regional Middle East war to “thin the pack” isn’t on the table. It’s also probably why no one really paid much attention to Africa until recently – too many people, too great a threat is they became self-sufficient/effecient, that is until now when we realize we might need their raw materials and resources…
Lawnguylander, thanks for that transcript. Made my day.
Funny thought occurred while reading through that depressing collection of wingnut philosophy: If a teacher found that sort of threatening rhetoric in a student’s notebook in your average U.S. elementary/middle/high school, the kid might well be suspended. Or expelled. Or at least sent in for counseling. I mean, that’s reality in post-Columbine America.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could hold right-wing commentators to the same standards of discourse we require for, oh, nine-year-olds?
Of course when I read this I’m not surprised. I also know what people hear on “Hot Talk” radio 560 am. The Disney/ABC station in San Francisco.
http://www.spockosbrain.com/LeeRogersIndonesiananotherEnemyMuslimNationKillMillions10252006H06M06.wma
And who hears this? People who DON’T read a lot and it normalizes and encourages (emboldens) those people’s worst self.
Tony Blankley’s suggestion was a hoot! You can tell he didn’t check with the White House before coming up with that one. After my comment he may be laughing at me but my take on the players in Iraq are; The Shia(he wants us to join with the Kurds) are aligned with Iran. The Sunni(who he wants the Shia and Kurds to oppose) are aligned with our “ally” Saudi Arabia and Syria and Jordan. We are in a maze that appears to have no solution other than gather at the perimeter, not let in other combatants and let the Iraqis resolve this. We are trying to referee a gun fight with guns. The Shia are shooting at Sunni and us. The Sunni are shooting at Shia and us. We are shooting at both. On top of that, we expect to win hearts and minds? We have long passed the definition of insanity.
what really shocks me is Lileks.
First of all, he is a mealy-mouthed nerd in huge glasses that admits he is sheepish (bleats?). His stories read like they were straight from the 1890’s, calm, peaceful little ditties about meaningless trips to walgreen’s and including his vacuous observations about how his mouthwash cleans the germs out of his mouth much like we should clean the muslim world or somesuch shit.
then, he openly admits that he has his own collection of 9/11 war-porn – a video he made his very own self that he sits down and watches whenever his pro-death-hardon starts to wain.
Seriously. Fucking LILEKS watches his 9/11 videos over and over again to maintain his mouth-frothing anger and war-hardon.
And he’s like the right’s marmaduke. Imagine what sort of war-porn people like Trevino watch.
ugh.
After reading the attached rants, one can no longer ignore the societal affects of childhood bullying. Teach your kids to be nice to each other. That kid designated as the school joke and punching bag will grow up to be our next Karl Rove wannabe. Every single one on the right seems to either be an ashamed closet gay, pedophile, racist, perverted adulterer, wife beater, porn addict, former nerd or was constantly picked on by his or her classmates who grew up resenting the popular kids. They are disgusting backwash. Let’s try not to create any more of them.
Why did Bosnia collapse into the worst slaughter in Europe since World War Two? In the thirty years before the meltdown, Bosnian Serbs had declined from 43 percent to 31 percent of the population, while Bosnian Muslims had increased from 26 percent to 44 percent. In a democratic age, you can’t buck demography—except through civil war. The Serbs figured that out—as other Continentals will in the years ahead: if you can’t outbreed the enemy, cull ’em. The problem that Europe faces is that Bosnia’s demographic profile is now the model for the entire continent.
(sigh)
demographics for islam in europe:
France 7.0%
Netherlands 6.0%
Denmark 5.0%
Switzerland 4.3%
Austria 4.2%
Sweden 3.9%
Germany 3.6%
Belgium 3.4%
United Kingdom 2.7%
Greece 2.3-2.7%
Norway 2.5%
Italy 1.4%
Spain 1.1%
Portugal 0.5%
Ireland 0.5%
Finland 0.4%
hmmm… so france has the largest islamic population at a whopping 7%. compare that to american blacks who are at 19% of the american population and have a very low level of political, social and economic enfranchisement.
wankers.
That kid designated as the school joke and punching bag will grow up to be our next Karl Rove wannabe. Every single one on the right seems to either be an ashamed closet gay, pedophile, racist, perverted adulterer, wife beater, porn addict, former nerd or was constantly picked on by his or her classmates who grew up resenting the popular kids.
Actually, a large chunk of them seem to be the entitled-rich-kid-with-doting-parents-who-think-his-shit-don’t-stink paradigm, to me. Lots of these guys strike me as the sterotypical nasty popular kids: they were the bullies–or the toadies and enablers–and they got away with it, so they learned that this is correct social behavior.
It’s certainly true of the pundit class and consultant class. They’ve turned the entire political discussion into a high school clique war. Who can garner more support among the band nerds and science geeks? Who can get the goody-two-shoes groups behind them? Who can BS and dissemble enough to take the vote? Don’t worry about lying or contradicting yourself: no one has the attention span to remember, and you can count on the gossip brigade to confuse things anyway.
To me, this is where the whole obsessing about what a candidate wears and which candidate is more “likeable” comes from. Elections in high school were just a popularity contest, and the popular cliques didn’t need to have any redeeming features other than (perhaps) good looks and money. There’s no point worrying about any kind of “qualifications” or “consequences” because the class president doesn’t really do anything anyway. Looks and perception and being in the “in crowd” are all you need to succeed.
These people never got out of high school; they can’t survive in the adult world so they try to make the adult world a mirror of high school, or even junior high. Personally, high school sucked for me: I was very glad to get into the “real world” where, you know, actions have consequences and ability and intelligence counts for something.
And I’m royally pissed that these shallow assholes are trying to take over the grown up world, too, instead of just fading off into a drunken stupor and talking about the glory days like they’re supposed.
Actually, having control of the armed forces, we strafe and bomb your convoy of Winnebagos and luxury SUVs.
You never make it to Washington.
We confiscate all your possessions and live a life of luxury forever. Mwahahahaha…
Wait a minute… Isn’t that the plot of Orson Scott Card’s latest novel?
Sadly, yes.
Hate to admit it, but Glenn Reynolds has a genuine point. The ‘objectification of the “other”‘, call it xenophobia, fear, or something else, usually leads to something very, very ugly. We have to get over this, and listen to our ‘better angels’. Of course it hardly helps that the Right calls the rest of us names for having a heart. Why can’t we just get along? Makes me want to down a 40 ouncer chardonnay, scarf a quiche, and knock heads.
Why are these conservatives helping the terrorists?
When the Iraqis hear that prominent Americans conservatives want all of them dead, the Iraqis are going to run to the arms of the terrorists.
Stupid ass conservatives are making the Iraqis hate us and helping out the terrorists.
Here we have many examples of those devotees of the “Foot and Mouth disease” solution to the problem of Islamic terrorism. They have convinced themselves that if there were no Islam there would be no Islamic terrorism. Of course the price we would pay for the elimination of Islam is more than rational people are willing to pay. But we are not dealing with rational people. We’re dealing with people who own a sledge hammer but not a fly swatter. Which means they do a lot of damage when they go to swatting flies. The fact is police work and diplomacy are better ways of dealing with terrorism than war.
A transcript from his radio show of Hugh Hewitt getting his ass kicked by William Odom (a retired general for anyone who’s never heard of him.
Think what you will of Hewitt’s politics, but his show is no echo chamber. Thomas Ricks gave him an equally stout rally on his book tour for The Looming Tower.
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About the problem of authoritarianism…
“The Authoritarians” book on pdf for free is available here:
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/ (or click link in my name, although it’s not my page – just a really great book I found)
This is a great book written by a researcher and in chapter 7 he even gives recommendations on what to do about the problem.
[…] perverse behavior and ideas of some of his best-est friends on television, detailed here, here, here, and today by Arianna Huffington here? And why was Kurtz’s column so easily predictable […]
[…] Bush evangelist, Hugh Hewitt) as though they are within the bounds of mainstream decency. What they advocate on a daily basis is as extreme and contrary to our country’s political values and traditions […]
[…] for anonymous commenters. And the converse is also true: those who document the extremism and sociopathic mentality in the right-wing blogosphere do so by citing the twisted writings of leading right-wing pundits, […]
[…] for anonymous commenters. And the converse is also true: those who document the extremism and sociopathic mentality in the right-wing blogosphere do so by citing the twisted writings of leading right-wing pundits, […]
[…] perverse behavior and ideas of some of his best-est friends on television, detailed here, here, here, and today by Arianna Huffington here? And why was Kurtz’s column so easily predictable […]