Welcome to The Dessert of The Real
Tom “Suck On This” Friedman, the pied-piper of globalization and one of the four & twenty Liberal Hawks who should be baked in Iraq’s pie, got pied by a couple of activists while he was telling lies to an audience at Brown University. Awesome. Hilarious. Righteous.
Yggy the Stooge, in a rare flirtation with actual radicalism, sez: “That’s funny.”
Hehindeedydoodleydingledoo.
Above: Bill Kristol getting pied, which was also very funny.
But Dan Drezner will have none of that, thank you very much. Tut-tut. Mournfully and …well, piously, he admonishes that:
This is the kind of thing that accomplishes the following:
A) It makes some people who dislike Friedman very happy;
B) It makes people who agree with Friedman like him even more;
C) It makes people who have ambiguous (or no) feelings towards Friedman feel much more sympathetic towards him.
Now let’s ignore the fact that like Friedman, Drezner was also an Iraq War enthusiast and so has excellent reason to fear the altogether inadequate but still somehow satisfying flying pastry of cosmic justice (alas, the Judgement at Nuremburg moment that Drezner and Friedman have so richly earned will only come in the afterlife). Let’s, instead, dwell on his Very Serious points.
…. [taps foot, kneads dough, whips meringue]
Ok, they’re for shit, and here’s why. Not everything said and done should be judged according to its ability to persuade. I didn’t think Dan Drezner really had a soul but he does: the soul of a spin doctor. That the flying pie humanely humiliated a monster and is thus an instrument of principle just doesn’t register.
His points are also kind of phony in another way; he quotes Jonathan Chait (another war-cheerleader), who finds the pie-throwing incident “horrifying.” This is civility vs. decency all over again, and Drezner’s pulling the same shit Mark A. Kleiman did: defending the indecent against the uncivil. Also like Kleiman, rather than explicitly commit to his “civility uber alles” instinct, he pretends the issue is about persuasion, Drezner’s point “C)” echoing Kleiman’s boasts that he got Glenn Reynolds to back off some fascist statement or other and that apropos Megan McArdle’s “2×4” comment and Eugene Volokh’s “yay, torture!” post
I… argue with people I disagree with instead of insulting them. But I’d rather make converts than enemies. And I find that an argument, especially one conducted in calm tones, is far more likely than a rant to convince onlookers, as well as the person on the other side of the dispute.
There’s something megalomaniacal about these Very Serious pundits who delude themselves into thinking they have such awesome skillz of persuasion that can convert determinedly stupid, awful people. Instead of crushing the infamous, people like Drezner and Kleiman would rather the infamous be coddled, cushioned, reasoned with. Because, ya know, people who believe in torture and beating protesters and making Iraqis “suck on this” are totally worth redeeming and not nearly so outrageous as pie-throwers and their admirers.
The fact is, globalization is a leftwing plot to eliminate America’s National Soverignty and to create a one world socialilst government. Here in the Heartland we are not fooled. This guy got what he deserved and so will the left for their treason.
C) It makes people who have ambiguous (or no) feelings towards Friedman feel much more sympathetic towards him.
I bet Dan luvs him some Friedman a lot more than he says he does. Chickenhawks of feather, etc.
Yes.
Even if this were qualifiable, who cares? People who agree with Friedman are unlikely to ever find much that’ll change their mind on Mr. Sensible Liberal. Was there ever a chance these people would wake up one day and realize that he’s a horrible writer with an unsustainable worldview?
Yeah…like for a minute or two.
I can be nice and sensible and moderate and say how bad this was, but nah. It was funny as hell, and a well-deserved reward for a cheerleader of the wrong.
Additionally, how can we debate Friedman/Kristol/etc.? It’s gotten to be so redundant how wrong these people are that pointing it out grows irrelevant. Comedic violence might be the only solution.
My opinion of Thomas Friedman when I see him on that YouTube clip or read his shit is that he has never done a psychedelic drug. He dwells in the world where whoever comes up with the best intellectual masturbation should be the most respected, whether or not that intellectual masturbation has anything to do with reality. I think that he would greatly benefit from a hit of acid.
One of the worst things about the internet is how many false nerds are out there. They’re too tedious and clumsy to be into music or art, too stupid to do the maths. Thus, politics and punditry, the middlebrow handshake.
When you’ve reached the level of Friedman, all avenues to self-humiliation are paved with gold, lies and heiresses. It’s the dream. Anything is possible, nothing can’t be bought or played with. Guys like Drezner, dreaming a couple tiers beneath with their courses on theories of rational self-interest and how fucking great it is, have to close ranks and defend the concept. It’s the only way they can worm their way in.
(Take 3. Thanks for the practice, WordPress!)
He says “ambiguous.”
He means “ambivalent.”
But never mind. It adheres to the Right-Wing Style: When your own side’s position has been shown to be morally bankrupt, criticize the other side’s manners.
Why not jump Friedman, and duct-tape his mouth shut? That is as harmless as throwing a pie at him, right? Oh, hey, how about jumping him, and duck his head underwater? Quick dip, that isn’t harmful, right? And it would shut him up and expose his wrong views regarding the war and torture! And since his views are contemptible and wrong, we are perfectly justified to attack him, right?
Sorry, HTML I think you are wrong. And, it certainly doesn’t have anything to do with my position on the war, which is right in line with yours. It has to do with assualt and battery. Attacks on the body are wrong. Once you allow any attack on the body, it isn’t easy to draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable attacks. That is why we are right and the torturers are wrong. Except HTML. He thinks that if someone is nasty, some sort of assault is OK. I look forward to his further defense of bodily assault. Maybe he’ll get the office next to John Yoo’s at Berkeley.
Perhaps you’d like to throw a pie at me for my views? Or would that just be worthy of pelting with Krispy Kremes? Stale ones that are kind of hard instead of soft and squishy. Hey, you know what else is hard? Rocks! And if Krispy Kremes are ok, rocks must be ok too!
Why not jump Friedman, and duct-tape his mouth shut?
Because this is actual violence and overt censorship, while the flying pie is a harmless prank that happens to convey righteous disgust.
The slippery slope from a whipped cream filled pie plate to suck.on.this.
Discuss.
For extra points, use the phrase of the day, moral equivalence.
But what if it’s a heavy pie? It could be pudding pie, and those suckers weigh a ton. What if it’s in a glass pan? Some pie-flinger might get careless and use glass. Or metal. What if the pie pan is metal and bonks the person on the head? And if the pie is meringue, the meringue can fill the nostrils and suffocate someone. What if the pie is allergic and the victim gets some in his mouth and goes into anaphylatic shock?
People just don’t think, man.
I’m horrified. I’m shocked. I’m appalled. I’m fucking shaken to my core. A pie thrown at Thomas Friedman is a pie thrown at all that is decent and uplifting in mankind. It’s like slipping a great big whoopie cushion onto the chair of Western Civilization or smearing Crazy Glue on God’s toilet seat.
This is the beginning of the end.
The Gestapo started out with pie-throwing, and things just got out of hand.
D) It makes the 98% of the people who don’t know who Friedman is wonder why you’re interrupting their quality time with the porn dragon.
New Friedman Book:
The World Is Actually Pie-Shaped or, If I Even Get a Pastry in the Face, It Goes Straight to My Hips
Urgent–pictures from the battlefield in Iraq. Death and destruction are everywhere.
Pie throwing is the Verschärfte Vernehmung of Liberal Fascism.
The WordPress dingos ate my baby.
No one is to throw a pie until I blow this whistle! Even, and I want to make this absolutly clear, even if they do say “Jehovah!”
I guess Rush was right about the whole Abu Griab thing. Forcing men to wear women’s underwear, stripping them naked and piling them in a big pyramid, all that shit was just harmless fratboy pranks.
*Sigh*
Y’know, I love the Sadly, No commetariat, obviously, for their wit and their wisdom.
But one thing always bugs me.
You can hate who you like. You can dislike who you like. You can be angry with who you like. You can tell me who you hate, who you dislike and who you’re angry with. Done properly, all that can be fun and interesting. Hell, HTML Mencken has turned it into a science.
But here’s what you may NOT do. You may not, ever, insist that I hate, dislike or be angry with the same people. And you may not impugn my morals, ethics or intelligence if I do not.
Honestly, some of the smartest, most admirable people in the world seem unwilling to accept someone not marching in lockstep.
As it happens, I like Hitchens. I read Hitchens. I watch him when opportunity presents. Do I agree with everything he’s ever said and done? Of course not. But I am neither mentally nor morally retarded for this position.
You can do what you want. And so can I.
Carry on…
mikey
I’ll defend to the death mikey’s right to post his comments in whatever thread he wants to post them in.
I love it when people say the pie-throwers are trying to stop the target from speaking.
Pies are not lethal or disabling weapons. They aren’t going to stop anyone from speaking.
At best, someone like Friedman who gets pied would then have an epiphany, think “Oh shit, I’m a jackass, I don’t have a clue what I’m talking about and should shut up” and thus *voluntarily* shut his piehole out of mortification and recognition of his limitations.
But that is so unlikely as to be mere fantasy.
??? mikey, I don’t get it. I never insisted anyone *had* to hate Hitchens.
Maybe if Dilawar had been pied people would have been more sympathetic toward him.
Hey, it’s spite. I’m man enough to admit it. We sit and watch our bombs blow up 2-year-olds in Iraq and we want to scream and we can’t. So someone throws a pie and we say, you go, man. Throw the pie at the fucker. He’s lucky we don’t bound and gag him and drop him off in the streets of Iraq.
And we know that’ll never happen, so we dream of flying pie.
Suck. On. Arrrrrrrhhmmmmmph. Mmmm, tasty!
Uhhh…
Most of what fardels bear said.
Plus: It ain’t really that funny. Kinda old and too easy, thought-wise. And these neo-con fucks don’t get humiliated at all – it puffs them up.
The pie-thrower just ends up looking impotent.
Hitchens was AWESOME on Hannity after Falwell died.
Otherwise, he is a total wanker.
Friedman is just a total wanker.
“The fact is,” I am piously wanting more pie. Blueberry, please.
WordPress wants to kill your firstborn son.
For no particular reason, this reminds me of the pie assassination in Schrodinger’s Cat.
We should be going to town on every one of their asses. We should tie their shoelaces together. Spill drinks on them. Trip them. That’ll show ’em. It may seem silly when one person does it, but when a million do it? Comedy gold.
flying pastry of cosmic justice
A Freedom Pie, as it were.
[imagines a shock-and-awe barrage of cream pies raining down on DC]
You may not, ever, insist that I hate, dislike or be angry with the same people
Don’t worry. I hate Hitchens enough for two people.
‘s OK, mikey – most of us rather prize independent thinking.
If I can like whom I like, then same goes fer you, my friend. 😉
a shock-and-awe barrage of cream pies
A whole different kind of materiel, that is. Perhaps Baker’s Square wouldn’t have gone out of business… *sigh*
And you may not impugn my morals, ethics or intelligence if I do not.
Aw, we’re not as bad as all that, mikey. Maybe in a few years you’ll be in a gulag and Hitchens will have an ice pick in his skull, but it’s just the People’s Business, nothing personal 😉
I like Freedom Silk Pie, myself. Mmm chocolaty!
Sorry HTML. I wasn’t clear. You do not do that, I agree.
When I said you made a science of it, I meant a science of telling who pisses you off and why. But you are not among those who sometimes take others to task for not wanting to completely disown a writer for a particular offense.
I guess that’s still awkward phraseology, but hopefully as clear as mud…
mikey
What did that poor pie do the flinger to deserve such a fate? It just seems like a shame to waste good pie.
This pie’s for you, WordPress.
Once you allow any attack on the body, it isn’t easy to draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable attacks.
But destroying families by sending fathers, sons, motehrs and daughters to die in a needless war is just fine….
Or letting people die through lack of health care.
These people are pigs and civil discourse is NOT what they deserve; scorn and ridicule is all they rate. If Friedman and his supporters don’t like that, they can reconsider what they espouse.
And for farting bear up there, do you really not see the difference between a pie and throwing rocks? Is that what passes for a syllogism now? If walking into someone is okay, why not hit them while driving a truck, huh?
Wow…the leap from “sorry HTML, I think you’re wrong” to the wry comparison of HTML to John Yoo took a whopping 8 sentences.
We didn’t just invent the circular firing squad, we perfected it.
Abu Ghraib: a powerful organization subjecting powerless individuals to ongoing humiliation and pain.
Pie throwing: a less powerful individual subjecting a more powerful individual to fleeting humiliation and discomfort.
The two can only be compared if your issue with torture is based on some doctrine of absolute bodily sovereignty, and the only such doctrine which would cover both pie-throwing and torture would also cover, say, police officers using force to capture criminals, prisons, the entire military, etc.
Hitchens got hit with a pie? That is fucking awesome. A pie to the face never gets old. On the other, more sensible hand, this could lead to weaponized pie so I urge prudence.
Any moment I’m laughing at people like Friedman is a moment I’m not thinking about grabbing the next motherfucker I see on Main St. approaching his SUV with its faded W bumpersticker, putting him in a headlock and squeezing until I get his eyes bugging out Marty Feldman style. Not that I would ever do anything like that but thinking about it isn’t so good for me either so I’m happy to be distracted by pie throwing pranksters.
It’s okay mikey, you’re crystal clear.
Well, when it comes to useless internet Liberal Hawks, I can get pretty strident in trying to persuade you to ignore them — because they are not worthy of forgiveness. But, no, I don’t *demand* that anyone stop reading them.
Lemme just say this: Hitchens is a total idiot now, an agent of evil and, as a writer, a shell of his former self. But I can see how someone decent might still get pleasure and profit out of reading his, say, literary criticism. The point being that there’s a distinction between a writer like Hitchens (even in his current degraded form) who has many interests, a unique style, and knows many things, and some blogging douchebag like Yggy who knows nothing but politics, has no claim to a prose style, and purveys the most tepid and conventional liberal opinion on a given subject. Hitchens is a menace, but at least he’s one of a kind; Sensible Liberal Hawks like Yggy are a dime a dozen. Hitchens at least has the courage of his own convictions and at one time had principles; hacks like Yggy are careerists who go with the flow (as he basically admitted in re: the Iraq War in that video I posted a while back in which he bragged that he went from pro-war to anti-war at just the right time to save his lib creds).
Mikey,
I insist that everybody hate Hitchens. Hate! Hate! Hate! Kill! Kill! Kill!
Lawnguylander,
Take comfort in the fact that those SUV-driving idiots are paying $100 a week to fill up their tanks…
And that they lack the resources to figure out any other way of living.
Relax. Smile. Enjoy the Schadenfreude!
Although WordPress is in some basement with remnants of the Serbian Army plotting to take over our fair nation and very way of life itself…
a shock-and-awe barrage of cream pies
Calling in a pie-strike by our squadron of AC-130 Spectre pie-ships!
Geez, OMC, no circular firing squad, just a disagreement.
What, we need to be in lockstep on pie-throwing?
Susan,
If your pudding pie weighs an actual ton, ur doin’ it wrong…
Just sayin’….
And, Prof. ITTDGY™³²®©? May I substitute ‘false equivalence’ for ‘moral equivalence’?
Geez, OMC, no circular firing squad, just a disagreement.
What, do we need to be in lockstep on pie-throwing?
They can’t figure out how not to drive SUVs?
Damn! I forgot to inform you that WordPress is, as we speak, falsifying his Federal firearms application so he can buy a crate of Uzis.
God, that’s horrible. Are there really no pictures of the event?
Folks, those inflicting violence ALWAYS claim to be pie-flingers. They are always acting out out of “necessity” against those they claim are powerful. The Nazis thought the Jews controlled the world, hence the Nazis said they were justified in resorting to violence. Those at Gtmo are terrorists who want to destroy us, according to bushco, hence violence is ok.
Your defense of pie is the same as their defense of waterboarding.
They can’t figure out how not to drive SUVs?
Remember the story I told about my co-worker who lives 1.5 miles from work and drives his SUV to work instead of walking? Then drives to the health club after work? To run on the treadmill? Then complains about high gas prices?
That’s who I had in mind. Well, him and the people in my neighborhood who haven’t figured out how to afford to buy/lease anything more efficient than their SUV’s…
And the dentist who got one because of the generous Federal tax credit for SUV purchases by small businesses and can’t afford anything else now because people are putting off getting their teeth fixed…
That kind of thing. Sorry if I wasn’t clear.
And speaking of teeth, how is Gavin?
Finally, WordPress is also breeding alligators it got from the sewers of New York City in order to create a population of ?ber-alligators to use for truly nefarious purposes.
I insist we be in lockstep on pies!!
Yummmm! Pie!
“Once you allow any attack on the body, it isn’t easy to draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable attacks”
If a pie is too much how about a squirt from an old fashioned Seltzer bottle? would that work? would that be too much? Or silly string?
a pie attacks and injures nothing but the too too precious dignity of the recipient – which is the point.
When you see a huge mob holding pikes with the words – “insert head here” written on the business end, that is when you should be concerned.
Your defense of pie is the same as their defense of waterboarding.
And thus does fardels bear officially jump the shark.
Your defense of pie is the same as their defense of waterboarding.
I sense another epic clusterfuck oh-my-sweet-fuck-have-these-people-lost-all-sense-of-proportion thread coming on. Awesome! I never get to see these things from the beginning.
Why does it always start with food, I wonder?
Throwing a pie is not violence. I’ll admit it’s not speech, either; it’s in a weird gray area that is very very narrow. Physical injury, censorship, and assault (in the legal sense — by which I mean a reasonable person’s belief/fear of physical threat) are *not* a result or intent of pie-throwing activites.
Pie-throwing has a comedic history that Abu Ghraib abuses don’t; and frankly it’s offensive that you equate the two, especially wrt rationale and justification. The point here is not why they’re thrown, but that the act itself is so harmless and loaded with an honorable tradition that even if a wingnut threw a pie at a liberal, it’d still be harmless and funny yet convey a moral point (however, in that case, wrongheaded the point may be). But of course wingnuts don’t throw pies; they actually want to *physically injure* people they confront (when they put down the Cheetos bag long enough to do so, admittedly a rare thing).
Your defense of pie is the same as their defense of waterboarding.
Um, no.
Tossing a pie isn’t violence – it’s vandalism-as-theater. An invasion of privacy.
I just think it’s cheap and ineffective and it turns assholes into martyrs without really hurting them.
These days the pie-thrower runs the risk of being tasered. Now that’s violence.
I mostly agree with henry lewis here — that is, I’m not specifically in favor of pie-throwing since I think it’s kind of tired, but I oppose the arguments suggesting it’s censorship, intimidation, assault, or (apparently now) torture.
I’ll take the unpopular and irresponsible position.
The only way I’d support hitting Thomas Friedman with a pie would be if it was a pie stuffed full of broken glass and cyanide.
A sane society would have mounted Friedman’s head on a pike — along with a bunch of other war-cheerleader pundits’ — three years ago as a warning to others not to promote illegal and unnecessary wars.
The real threat posed by pie throwing is that the recepients will get together and propose and pass a program and funding for a space-based pie defense system.
The fact is, I like pie!
C) It makes people who have ambiguous (or no) feelings towards Friedman feel much more sympathetic towards him.
So when those Belgian dudes pied Bill Gates, how many of us suddenly regained our enthusiasm for Micro$oft products?
That was a rhetorical question, by the way.
I’m just going to use this thread as an excuse to post this.
Meh, count me out of the pie-throwing. For all the offensiveness of Thomas Friedman’s words, his offenses have been just that: words. Moving into the realm of the physical escalates this in a bad way.
That said, I think he should be forced to give every speech looking at a giant “Suck. On. This.” banner accompanied by photos of mutilated Iraqi children. MUCH more on point than a pie to the face for being too corporate to advocate environmentalism, which is what the protest was actually about.
Brandi said,
May 1, 2008 at 3:00
I’m just going to use this thread as an excuse to post this.
Hurray for Brandi!
I agree. Thanks, Brandi!
I formally deem this pie stunt insufficiently daring in comparison to prior art (thanks, Alec).
Our elementary school had a tradition of violence.
Yessir. The kids who read the most books got to pie the principle. On stage. In front of everyone.
Unfortunately we didn’t have bibliophile sluggers and the principle never received a cut.
Sad.
An attack on pie-throwing is an attack on vaudeville, on clowns, and on America!
“Thus, politics and punditry, the middlebrow handshake.”
Modulo wins the thread.
Ok then, how is a pie different then say, Blood?
Even simulated Blood.
Look, many of us here are ignoring the undeniable equivalence of pie-throwing and outright forms of assault and battery. Forget, for a moment, the fact that the tossing of cream pies has been a comedy staple for decades. Put yourself in his shoes. Imagine the terror that poor Friedman felt as the pie was flung at him. Imagine his smug, vacuous face contorting in shock as the unanticipated pastry approached. Imagine the shame he felt as many in the audience erupted in cheers at the sight of the well-compensated war cheerleader covered in whipped cream. Imagine him crying like a baby, and stamping his feet in outrage as the waves of laughter invalidated his pathetic existence. Um, I forgot what my point was supposed to be, but anyway, just imagine all that!
Touche’
pity there wasn’t a fucking brick hidden in those pies.
Especially if the brick had been manufactured in Indonesia, and shipped to the US by a European transport company. Friedman could marvel once again at the wonders of our interconnected global marketplace!
I strongly object to the way that Mustachio got pied. Because he saw the pie-flingers coming, which gave him the chance to bob and weave, so they essentially missed. Sure, he got some of the stuff splattered all over him, but nevertheless we missed out on the climactic image of Friedman’s face concealed by an inch-thick layer of glop. Worst of all, the mustache itself was left unsullied.
My Highly Principled Moral Stand on Pie-ing, therefore, is: Yes, but only if you hit the target squarely in the face; otherwise, No.
Let’s get serious — it’s time to sic the mimes on him.
henry lewis said,
April 30, 2008 at 21:51
Geez, OMC, no circular firing squad, just a disagreement.
What, do we need to be in lockstep on pie-throwing?
Oh, Henry! You make a delicious chocolate bar, but you mistook my point — hardly your fault mind you, as I’m generally pointless. What I meant was more along the lines of ‘why can’t we just disagree with our friends without getting all hyperbolic’, especially since the disagreement in question is over the launch of ballistic pastry. Much like the argument itself that pie throwing is the gateway drug to torture, comparing HTML to John Yoo seems to lack a sense of proportion.
Your defense of pie is the same as their defense of waterboarding.
I was with you until this.
This sentence I quoted? It’s horseshit.
For all the offensiveness of Thomas Friedman’s words, his offenses have been just that: words.
And if he were some schlub shouting those words out his window or posting them on his 50-hit-per-day blog, then I’d be just as quick to dismiss his idiocy as harmless and irrelevant.
But he’s not harmless or irrelevant. He is a Famous Writer, and is considered by some people (myself not among them) to be a public intellectual. People listen to his simplistic, misguided drivel. Some of those people are in positions of influence, and rely on those ideas when shaping public policy.
Limbaugh told us that Words Mean Things. Yes they do. And they also have real-world consequences – especially when the ideas they convey are dangerous.
So what should we do about Friedman? I don’t know. But pie seems inadequate.
Let’s get serious — it’s time to sic the mimes on him.
I’ll see if I can get in touch with this guy. Seems like he’s down for whatever.
This is a strong argument for offering our support to the mouthbreathers who would have us legally change the value of pie to be equal to 3.
So what should we do about Friedman? I don’t know. But pie seems inadequate.
I’m just saying it’s inadequate in the wrong direction. Because the logical progression from physical (yet harmless) assault, is harmful physical assault. Maybe we should punch him? Still a little too light considering the harm we did in Iraq. And from there it just escalate into a very dark place.
And as I mentioned offhandedly, this pie wasn’t even for his Iraq rhetoric. It was because he was insufficiently anti-capitalist in his environmental talk.
Hence the big “Suck. On. This.” bloody children sign. Friedman should be looking at that every time he opens his gob in front of an audience. Personally, I think he should be fired from his cushy pundit position and offered the position of un-embedded war correspondent in Iraq if he ever wants to write for a major publication again so he can see first-hand the result of his rhetoric.
Lesly: Bad argument. The principal consented. That’s all the difference in the world.
Blancmange!
The controversy isn’t the pie.
It’s that people pay good money to listen to him.
THAT is disgusting.
Go ahead – try getting your bloody-children sign into one of these things past security – good luck! No, REALLY – please, by all means, feel free – you’ll still likely get booed & tossed out, but that’s no reason not to run with a worthy idea. We need more of that, too … but I’m pro-pie myself. Jesus On A Pogostick, did I just type that? Hmm, why yes I did – ergo, that wee white dot up yonder must be The Proverbial Rabbit-Hole after all.
Hell, where I’m from, folks would be grateful for the free dessert!
Mmm, what’s that I smell?
Could it be an oven-full of rich creamy Double-Chocolate Hyperbole?
Pie = Waterboarding?!?
From pie to “a very dark place”?
Uh-HUH.
Hey, don’t bogart that bong, dudes, ’cause that’s just GOTTA be BC Bud!
This thread is all kinds of stupid.
It takes a special kind of person to think that assaulting people is funny. But it’s ok, that asshole supported the war and the boogeyman globalization! If you fear this man so much become a public intellectual and undercut his argument.
Grow up.
You don’t hang around here much, do you, Robert?
Blood stains clothes.
Wait. I thought we were talking about torturing people with pies, not consent? It wasn’t torture when Mr. Levin volunteered?
What, do we need to be in lockstep on pie-throwing?
Right or wrong, lockstep synchronized pie-throwing would be hilarious.
Fortunately, no.
@fardles bear said:
Folks, those inflicting violence ALWAYS claim to be pie-flingers. They are always acting out out of “necessity” against those they claim are powerful. The Nazis thought the Jews controlled the world, hence the Nazis said they were justified in resorting to violence. Those at Gtmo are terrorists who want to destroy us, according to bushco, hence violence is ok.
Your defense of pie is the same as their defense of waterboarding.
I’m curious, Fardles: When the Allies fought back against the Nazis, was it justifiable because the Nazi’s were powerful, or because they were evil fucks? For that matter, would you say that the Jews (and Germans) who resisted the Nazis were justified in doing so? If so, why?
Your concern seems… how shall I say this… trollish.
I agree with the commenter who said that taking your position to its end would mean that there is never a time when violence is justifiable. Is that what you mean?
Not fortunate for us, Robert S. Porter because this is a humor/politics blog and this:
If you fear this man so much become a public intellectual and undercut his argument.
is fucking funny. BTW, there’s also a tradition of pedantry here so I have to inform you that hitting someone with a pie is not assault. It’s harassment at worst. Unless there’s a brick in there or the pie is frozen and hurts the person. I guess if Friedman had fallen off the stage trying to get away or stepped on a rake and then got thwacked in the face and became so dizzy that he stumbled around and then stuck one foot in a toilet bowl and then a finger in an empty light socket and got a nasty shock then it would be assault. And so much funnier.
It takes a special kind of person to think that assaulting people is funny.
I think it’s fucking hilarious! It’s really quite a problem for me, since I’m a professional psychotic maniac. I keep collapsing into giggles when I’m trying to attack my victims.
If you fear this man so much become a public intellectual and undercut his argument.
But what if I become a public intellectual who feels that my ideas are best expressed by tossing pies at assholes?
Grow up.
What if I become a public intellectual who feels that my ideas are best expressed by soiling my diapers? After all, that’s pretty much what Friedman does, metaphorically speaking.
This thread is all kinds of stupid.
I wouldn’t really say all kinds of stupid, Robert. There are many forms of dumbfuckitude, and this is a fairly short thread. But your contribution is appreciated.
People with pie in their veins have a much greater risk of embolisms.
It takes a special kind of Pentagon to enlist convicted terrorists.
What kind of fucked up world do we live in!?!!?!
You know, it occurs to me that hitting someone with even a soft, silky cream pie is violent assault. That is, providing that you don’t make the pie on a light collapsible aluminum pie-pan, but on a circular saw blade.
I’m all about the pie-tossing public intellectuals, Snorg.
If you fear this man so much become a public intellectual and undercut his argument.
If you fear pies so much, why don’t you just go live in an underground bunker, fercryinoutloud?
If someone can link to a copy of that Kliban cartoon — “Testing the New Cement Pie” — it would round this thread off nicely.
Lunch with Soupy Sales is the Eternal Jew of Liberal Fascism
[…] things never change: Kleiman is still clueless. Of course we’ve been through all this before, and I only return to the topic to make the point of principle. Kleiman will tolerate any amount of […]