Here's the first paragraph of
Frank Bruni's new column (NYT):
In denouncing the hatred that brought bloodshed to a baseball diamond in Alexandria, Va., some people went ahead and spread more of it. Rush Limbaugh, take a bow. You called the shooter “a mainstream Democrat voter.” What do I call you? I want to be clear about my disgust, but not disgusting in my expression of it. That’s the hell of American politics and American discourse today, with its 140-character emissions.
Here's the Rush Limbaugh monologue with the relevant phrase:
The Democrat base voter who shot up the Republican Congress today in Virginia, he was a mainstream Democrat voter. He was not a Looney Tune kook burger.
That's a summary after a commercial break. Of course, Rush doesn't deal in "with its 140-character emissions." The monologue in question is over
18,000 characters. We're meant to have listened to an extensive argument that preceded the break. Here are some excerpts:
But I have been worried for quite a while about the cumulative effect or impact of this constant anti-Trump hysteria everywhere in mainstream media: New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC. It’s hysteria. It’s lies.... I have been very concerned about what all of this is doing to the average, base Democrat voter. I have sensed them getting more and more fringe and imbalanced... The hatred is raw, it is undiluted, it’s just savage. These are the mainstream of the Democrat base, and I don’t have any doubt that they are being radicalized. They’re being radicalized.
In this case, this guy’s favorite TV shows, Comedy Central, Bill Maher, left-wing comedians. John Oliver on HBO. Half the people at Comedy Central. Rachel Maddow was his all-time favorite. He thought she should run for president. These people have radicalized guys like this all over this country....
If this had not happened as it has happened for the last seven months, would this guy be as enraged, would he have been as he was? Well, we can’t know. With numerous assassination plays and television shows and so forth that have now permeated the popular culture, it is, as I say, I’ve run out of descriptive words. This guy’s Facebook page reads and looks exactly like your average CNN 10 person panel on Trump and Russia....
And this guy, Hodgkinson, wherever you go to find evidence of his thinking and belief, it mirrors what you see in the Drive-By Media every day. As I said, this is what alarms me more than the fact that he’s a fringe lunatic. He is a lunatic, or was. But he’s mainstream. This has been my point all along, that the Democrat Party mainstream are not really mainstream citizens or human beings. They have been radicalized...
The point is that Hodgkinson's
ideas — to the extent that we can learn them from his social media presence — tracked mainstream media. Hodgkinson's
actions obviously go beyond what we find in the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and NBC.
Posts
168 comments:
The point is that Hodgkinson's ideas — to the extent that we can learn them from his social media presence — tracked mainstream media. Hodgkinson's actions obviously go beyond what we find in the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and NBC.
But I'm not so sure his actions go far beyond what the folks in those institutions fantasize among themselves in private.
In Frank Bruni's world, if you don't agree with Frank Bruni and his fellow "journalists" at the NYT,you are simply deplorable. And it's disgusting that you might be heard. There is a lot of "othering" going on in the USA today. I'll concede that it happens on both sides, but I think that the left or progressives engage in more than their fair share of such conduct.
I agree with bank walker there, I have heard at least one guy in a bar smirk, wink, and say Kathy Griffin is alright with him. This constant drumbeat is inevitably going to whip up some kind of a war fever. Of course it's the job of the New York Times to deny it. Bruni is immersed in it and has no perspective. Lots of maladjusted people think their therapist is full of shit too, and can come up with long lists of reasons why they are right and he is wrong, except, of course, for the reality of their everyday lives.
Hodgkinson's actions obviously go beyond what we find in the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and NBC.
It's hard to imagine how much further beyond what we see in the media his actions have gone. When you see rhetoric that 'millions will die' because of the hateful Republican House repeal and replace bill, or constantly hear about the racists and Nazis who want to deport illegals and keep out Muslims, it's a call to action.
In fact, that was the very massage of the orange-haired Caesar production. They weren't advocating the murder of the Orange Trump Chimp; no, not at all. They were using art to illustrate how one can be undone by his orange evil ways.
Once the return of the CheetoHitler has been identified, and the call to resist by any means necessary has been issued, it becomes one's patriotic duty........A NECESSITY.....TO ACT!
The lefties are hateful little shits, and it's only going to get worse.
- Krumhorn
A lefty commenter whose name I will not invoke explained best why the drumbeat must not stop; "reasons!" but there are many many many like her all over the internet, all over my Facebook feed, and even for some unknowable reason, on my Instagram feed. I would like to know the difference between their politics and this guy's with the except that he took all of the rhetoric more seriously than they do, apparently.
The question I have if I were an impressionable lefty is as follows: If the R's in congress are depicted as pushing granny over the in a wheelchair, how would I stop it? We are talking life and death here.
If, as impressionable lefty, I saw Snoop Dogg putting a gun to Trumps head, saw Kathy Griffin holding Trumps severed head, watched Madonna say she wanted to blow up the White House, how would I react?
Fuck Frank Bruni. With something he doesn't want to be fucked with.
The thing too about the Caesar play isn't that it was Trump as Caesar, that's all well and good in the tradition of the play, although it is funny to me to hear those putting it on claim that only those offended by it, and not those who cheer it on, are not careful students of Shakespeare. The worst thing about the play was the portrayal of the foaming at the mouth crowds wearing MAGA hats. That's high level othering right there.
Who wouldn't kill Hitler if given the chance? Who wouldn't kill somebody who is trying to kill millions! But hey! It's just rhetoric right, and after 5, we all have martinis together and talk baseball.
How soon we forget Nobel Laureate Barack Obama's statesmanlike utterances:
“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” Obama said in Philadelphia last night. “Because from what I understand, folks in Philly like a good brawl."
Rush was not wrong, and he wasn't calling the guy names...What is Bruni's problem?? Did he want Rush to call him names?
Disgust is a go-to end word for an argument. It's what reason can't swallow.
Klavan calls the NYT opinion page knucklehead row.
Nice to see Ann shed her PM bs for an instant and use the proper manly word "action". It must have been hard for her to "swallow" ( good line from rhhardin).
Bruni is flat out dishonest. Or he is stupid and lazy. Or maybe prejudiced. These are all good explanations for how he ignores what Limbaugh actually says. I do not know Bruni but some or all of these categories have to apply with respect to how Bruni approaches Limbaugh.
Is Rush conceding here that it's fair game to argue that he had something to do with the OKC bombing?
Didn't Obama say "bring a gun" to the fight? Isn't the resistance a fight? Didn't this guy consider himself part of the resistance? Didn't Tim Kaine say that Democrats have to "fight in the streets"?
I guess the Obama, Kaine and other Democrats can be absolved because the shooter wan't in the streets.
Is Hodgkinson our modern John Brown? Violence in Virginia (at the time) in both cases with an older man, Brown was 59, Hodgkinson 66. Brown came to believe, like many abolitionists, that violence was the only way to solve the problem of slavery, "The crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood." And in case you didn't know, Brown was eulogized in the North, by no lesser a light than Henry David Thoreau, while his crime was pointed to in the South as proof of a Northern conspiracy to end slavery, which would have shattered the South's economy. Ralph Waldo Emerson and others suggested reimbursing slave owners for their loss before the war but that idea was ignored mostly, by abolitionists, who wanted the South to pay for its sin. At this point is it so far fetched to believe the neo-liberal Democrat Party and its press want the blood of conservatives to pay for its sin, which was to elect Donald Trump?
s Rush conceding here that it's fair game to argue that he had something to do with the OKC bombing?
Sure, if you had the first shred of evidence beyond the usual "Reasons!" McVeigh was nothing like a "ditto head," this guy was a Rachael Maddow superfan. Do you have any evidence that McVeigh was a regular Rush listener?
Is Rush conceding here that it's fair game to argue that he had something to do with the OKC bombing?
No, Jason.
Plus I am sort of at a loss to remember the violent imagery that Rush used to express his disapproval of liberals. Maybe you can remind me? Or have you carried the argument as far as you care to now that you have raised the most tenuous point? It's bombs away on the Timothy McVeigh/ Rush nexus!
"Is Rush conceding here that it's fair game to argue that he had something to do with the OKC bombing?"
Why do you think he is?
Lefty tu quoque. They can't use Sarah Palin anymore because of the lawsuit pending.
Hodgekinson was a Democrat lone wolf. He matches the same pattern as lone wolf attacks by Islamists, except he apparently wasn't a Muslim. Radicalized online and by the media.
Hodgkinson's actions obviously go beyond what we find in the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and NBC.
They have promised impeachment of Trump, but he knows that's only the symptom and not the disease. He's part of their excision of non-Democrats from the power structure that they describe must happen every day.
How will they get Republicans out of Congress? How will they keep these evil ideas from remaining under President Pence?
He knows what must be done.
Prof. A: you speak of the "ideas" being circulated on the Left and you distinguish them from the "actions" --Hodgkinson marinated in Left discourse but then --unlike the rest of the Left-- he went beyond thought. I think that classical analysis is breaking down as the Left works itself into this mob frenzy. It is more susceptible to such frenzy because it is dependent on emotion, and emotionnis what powers and eases the move from idea to action. The Right (conservative, small-government, classic liberal, Age of Reason) is emphatically NOT about emotion but rather about mastering it. So the Right has a stronger claim than the Left to not breeding an army of Hodgkinson clones with its mad rhetoric of hate.
The Left, more than the Right, is responsible for the breakdown we see. IMHO.
From the comments:
Casey Jonesed Charlotte, NC 1 hour ago
there is not a comparable 'hate' on the Democratic side.
there isn't a liberal Alex Jones for example.
there are many Alex Jones' on the right.
it is not equivalent.
We are well and truly fucked.
Bruni has to knock out a column every Sunday. If the Left use Rush (their greatest boogeyman) as the antagonist, they had nothing else to talk about. It's just a desperation ploy from an opinion writer who's run out of ideas.
Or, after such a dangerous week, avoids the real issue.
Another pronouncement from the Times restaurant critic.
Curious George"
"Is Rush conceding here that it's fair game to argue that he had something to do with the OKC bombing?"
"Why do you think he is?"
Why would you assume I think he is?
Jared Loughner shoots a democrat - Sarah Palin is to blame, even though she isn't.
Crazed lefty democrat shoots at some R's - and we know who is to blame. The MSM, Colbert, Maher, Joy Baher etal...
FTA: You called the shooter “a mainstream Democrat voter.” What do I call you?
You can call Limbaugh a "mainstream conservative."
However, it is instructive to note that Rush, the mainstream conservative, has not shot anyone, nor called for any Congressional representatives to be shot, while the mainstream Democrat voter did in fact, deliberately engage in a calculated attempt to assassinate multiple elected officials.
Almost all of Bruni's column seems to be criticizing the mainstream media and the liberals, though. The bit about Limbaugh is read meat and probably chaff to get the idiots on the editorial board to sign off in it, but the rest of the article has nothing to do with Limbaugh or conservative media, in general.
Seems like maybe Rush touched a nerve there? An over-the-top response like that from Bruni suggests that Rush was on target.
I don't disagree with Limbaugh's assessment, but his lack of self-reflection is interesting. He is, after all, the guy who started every broadcast during the Clinton administration with a running count of the days America had been "held hostage" (a la Nightline during the '70s Iran crisis). There is no doubt that our political rhetoric had grown courser over the past couple of decades, but that is a trend to which Limbaugh has amply contributed.
Frank Bruni and most of his ilk at the NYT toggle back and forth between being Democrat loyalists or Democrat defense attorneys.
Here, Bruni is putting on his phony "neutral hat" to call a foul on Rush for describing the murderous idiot Hodgkinson a "mainstream Democrat voter"
True, most mainstream Dem voters dont shoot their opponents. But mainstream Dem voters watch Rachel Maddow, watch John Oliver, read HuffPost, and write letters to papers castigating GOP taxation policies.
Hodgkinson was radicalized by the mainstream media as Scott Adams said. He demonized his opponents and appointed himself the "Demon Slayer". Not unlike Travis Bickle in "Taxi Driver".
Rush 1, Bruni 0
"The point is that Hodgkinson's ideas — to the extent that we can learn them from his social media presence — tracked mainstream media. Hodgkinson's actions obviously go beyond what we find in the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and NBC."
The MSM push, push, push, but then when someone actually goes where they have been pushing, and commits the violence that they keep pushing their side to do, they respond that they REALLY didn't mean for their audience to go that far. They don't have any blood on their hands, nosiree.
Bruni and his MSM buddies are starting to reap what they have sown, and want to pretend that they are innocent bystanders, merely chronicling history as it is routinely made. But the Internet doesn't forget, so it isn't going to work. Pictures of Kathy Griffin will be forever available with the bloody Trump head in her hand. As will the articles by Bruni and other denizens of the NYT, WaPo, etc.
What do I call you? I want to be clear about my disgust, but not disgusting in my expression of it.
How about moving target?
Was Hodgkinson a nut or an early adopter?
Fellow NY Times columnist Douthat makes the same point as Limbaugh about shooter's mainstream views, but difference is he does not try to use his point to just indict one side.
Is Rush conceding here that it's fair game to argue that he had something to do with the OKC bombing?
This is a pretty ignorant comment but maybe the commenter was born in 1995 and dos not remember that the bombing of the Murrah building was ON THE ANNIVERSARY of the Waco massacre.
McVeigh's motive was pretty obvious.
I still wonder about he #2 guy when he rented the truck but McVeigh was after revenge for a specific event.
I doubt he knew who Limbaugh was.
And by the way, Limbaugh stopped using that "America Held Hostage lead after the 1994 election.
I might add that I talked to my FBI agent daughter yesterday and she suggests to me that some Democrats are getting turned off by the 24/7 hysteria. I asked her what she thought about her boy, Comey and she agreed he was pretty weak.
I think the hysteria will continue to stir up the nutcases and we will have another event but some Democrats are getting tired of it.
Hodgkinson was not crazy, he was angry. he was radicalized by the MSM If the man believed the GOP is evil then destroying evil is the proper action. The logic is clear if GOP is evil then killing 25-30 GOP representatives is the proper thing to do.
I've said it time and time again. People, we are in a run up to Civil War. There is no other path than the one we are on. The utterly incompatible belief systems of our national divide cannot be reconciled without a war between them to the bitter and utter end and a final victory by one or the other.
"The monologue in question is over 18,000 characters. We're meant to have listened to an extensive argument that preceded the break." It's little thing, but telling: an obvious lie about a basic fact, a fake argument based on a fake assumption.
Hodgkinson is literally a Democrat terrorist.
I've concluded that the only difference between ISIS and much of the left is that ISIS claims responsibility for their lone wolves.
Rabble rousing is a traditional tactic that is not going away. It requires community leader approved propaganda that a designated enemy group is a deadly force coming to destroy us. Catholics used that tactic to loot and kill Jews for 1500 years. The McCarthy era GOP used it to suppress FDR Democrat new dealers. The leaders use public displays of hate whip it up.
The Conservatives like Rush Limbaugh had a crisis of their own once in the John Burch Society true believers. They finally figured out they had to disown that evil cult practices to be taken seriously. The problem was how many losers were becoming lost in paranoid fake news, taking it as truth that only they can save every one from and become heroes.
John Brown is the best known historical example. And his belief system is
still used to rouse rabble in ignorant northern politics today.
Worth remembering:
Violence does not correlate all that well with extremeness of opinions. It's notorious that the Unabomber's opinions on the environment are indistinguishable from Al Gore's. There are on-line quizzes where you can try to tell which is which. Most users score around 50%, which is no better than random guessing. The difference is that Al Gore doesn't go around killing people on the other side. There are far more extreme positions than Gore's on the environmentalist spectrum, but (e.g.) the Voluntary Human Extinction people are not known for going around killing those who disagree. (They're not known for extinguishing themselves, either, which shows how unserious they are, but that's a separate issue.)
People who think the world is controlled by shape-shifting lizardoid aliens are far more extreme than the late Mr. Hodgkinson, but they don't even go around trying to physically unmask the Bushes and the Pope and the Queen of England and the other lizardoids, much less try to kill them.
Of course, this worsens the problem. We don't just have to look out for people with extremist ideas, we have to watch out for those with socially-acceptable political ideas plus a willingness to kill for them, and they're a lot harder to detect.
This stuff is certainly annoying, but it's hard to get worked up about it. Liberals have been manufacturing their own realities since the fall of Rome, so what's the point other than engaging in a verbal slug-fest.
Still, it can be fun if you're a good debater. It's also fun to walk into Starbucks with a naked banana-cream pie and wearing a Ronald Reagan T-Shirt. And glaring at the cheesecake eaters.
"I don't disagree with Limbaugh's assessment, but his lack of self-reflection is interesting. He is, after all, the guy who started every broadcast during the Clinton administration with a running count of the days America had been "held hostage" (a la Nightline during the '70s Iran crisis). There is no doubt that our political rhetoric had grown courser over the past couple of decades, but that is a trend to which Limbaugh has amply contributed."
Maybe one distinction here is that the right really doesn't violently radicalize very well, while that seems to come naturally on the left, who ch runs mostly on emotion, since rational logic inevitably tells us that their positions are brainless (despite being held by all the best and brightest). Almost all mass murderers, political assassins, and those engaging in political violence have been Democrats, or felow travelers on the left, for a long, long time,mmaybe going back to John Wilkes Booth (with maybe the exception of some radicalized Muslims, who don't fit on either side yet). Dig deep enough, with mass murderers in this country, and they almost inevitably turn out to be leftists of some stripe or another.
Justice Holmes suggested that one exception to free speech was falsely yelling "fire" in a crowded theater. Why was that bad? Because of the likelihood of that causing panic, and, thus, injuries, and, maybe even death, in the stampede to get out. It is the reasonable expectation of this panic, and consequential injuries, that makes this sort of speech problematic. It's foreseeability. One of the first cases traditionally taught in law school in Torts is "Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co.", which revolves partially around foreseeability. Is it reasonable that some leftist wackos will listen to the MSM push othering and demonization of the Republicans and Trump, scream about their illegitimacy and fascism, etc, then commit violence, even to the point of shooting Congressmen because they were Republicans? I think that it was very foreseeable that some of these leftist wackos would listen to the MSM, and use the views expressed to justify their violebt actions. Would that be true if the parties were reversed? I think much less so given history. Kinda maybe the difference between gasoline and water on a fire.
I stopped reading the WaPo during the election campaign. Their coverage was so one sided and raw I could not even attempt them for balance. Once the election was over they went all out ,all the time, with columns that said, essentially, Trump is - and by association all Republicans are - the devil and he should be exorcised from the body politic. Because they are "word" people and have no idea what "action" people might do when given encouragement, they are "shocked, shocked" to find that their words might have incited Hodgkinson to do what he did.
As many here have noted in other threads Hodgkinson's action were reasonably predictable. You just had to find the right wacko.
@ David, if it weren't for the stupid and the lazy, where would Democrats get their voters?
Lefty tu quoque
The great thing, or the problem, with tu quoque is that you need to be the first one to make the accusation or criticism. Then you're home free. TQ has really melded into Fen's Law or, as I learned in Psych 101, projection. You accuse them of what you are doing so that when they accuse you of it you can say haha, TQ! And sound profound, and never answer the charge.
ISIS claims responsibility for their lone wolves
So that Islam needn't.
I'm presuming that there are Alex Jones-like 'crazies' on the Left but I don't know their names. Who are they?
@sebastian (apologies): "The monologue in question is over 18,000 characters. We're meant to have listened to an extensive argument that preceded the break." It's little thing, but telling: an obvious lie about a basic fact, a fake argument based on a fake assumption.'
Of course, I was referring to Bruni's lie--so telling in being obvious and casual and shameless--on which AA rightly called BS.
readering, above, lauds Douthat for his false equivocation between Left and Right. Chris Wallace did the same thing on FoxNews Sunday, alleging that the rhetoric of the Tea Party was just as bad as the current rhetoric of the Antifa (READ: pro fascist) Left. It's a lie and it is defamation, of a type.
The Tea Party groups were famously well behaved. Andrew Breitbart offered $100k for videotape that would support John Lewis' (D - GA) claim that he faced racial epithets while walking to Capitol Hill. But no videotape showing anything of the type, despite a significant financial inducement to deliver it, was ever revealed. It was a slander of the good people who hoped to avoid the calamity that the Tea Party accurately predicted from Democrats' insurance scheme to disrupt and take over 17% of the U.S. economy.
No Republicans or Tea Party members ever dreamed publicly of punching communists. Democrats openly agitate for punching Republicans under the guise of punching Nazis. Conservatives want mainly to be left the hell alone to direct their own lives without government interference. They are not agitating for the use of government power to coerce others to their will. It is the underlying philosophy in pursuit of this power which animates the Left, but not the Right, to violence.
However, the Right will defend itself vigorously from violence. And it won't just be pantsing Pro-Fascist Leftists if the violence is escalated by the Left. The Left has depended on their better organization, which stems from the hierarchical structure necessary to exert control under their belief structure. Meanwhile, the Right is hamstrung owing to its members' strong desire to remain independent and self-sufficient.
If that orientation changes, it will be a very bad signal about what lies ahead. If the Right begins to organize beyond the rhetoric of a Rush Limbaugh and develops systems and structures of authority that augurs poorly for the Left.
As an example, watch how the Left practices message discipline even down into blog comment sections. That bespeaks a centralized structure.
(buwaya has been right about this for a very long time. It is an advantage to read the perspective of an outsider. Thank you, buwaya.)
Mark Puckett:
Check the MSNBC list of on-air personalities if you are confused about Alex Jones types on the Left. You may have to go back a few years to catch guys like Ed Schultz.
Also, check the conspiracy theorists in the "straight news" articles who use anonymous sources to make up bull shit in the major daily newspapers.
Pretty much as usual Scott Adams calls it. If you continue to tout someone as hitler, someone at the end of the day is going to want to assasinate hitler.
It happens with abortion doctors.
"If that orientation changes, it will be a very bad signal about what lies ahead. If the Right begins to organize beyond the rhetoric of a Rush Limbaugh and develops systems and structures of authority that augurs poorly for the Left."
I expect you will see that happening now for sure. Not only for self-preservation but just the knowledge that the democrat media party has promoted tribal everything. Do not be surprised when one of the largest tribes takes them up on it.
Hodgkinson may have done us a favor, though Rep. Steve Scalise and his family are unlikely to appreciate it.
I have long thought that Trump is likely to be assassinated by a leftist egged on by the MSM and leftwing culture. They are begging for it to happen.
Now that it has become obvious to all but the willingly oblivious, he is more likely to be kept safe.
Added note: My colleagues assume that I am a liberal because I am a psychologist with beard. (It's part of the dress code!) The morning after the election, two of them (social workers with significant life and professional experience) expressed how stunned they were that Trump was elected. They consoled each other when one (a very nice lady for the most part) said, "Well we can always hope for assassination."
I'm sure Bruni has no problem with the Trump assassination porn. It's all 'free speech' after all. But a left-wing professor says 'wait a minute' to Evergreen's ban-all-crackers day and they lose their minds.
If there's ever an opportunity to be classy
it's when there is an assassination attempt on one of your political enemies
Nancy Pelosi was very classy
and it is appreciated.
The difference is that Al Gore doesn't go around killing people on the other side.
He has people who do those jobs for him or will soon enough.
If one side wins it leaves the other side alone.
If the other side wins it takes everyone's stuff, turns the place into a shit hole, and murders dissenters by the millions.
Quaestor,
Agreed. Al Gore wants to impoverish people by restricting their opportunities. Nothing kills quite as silently and relentlessly as grinding poverty. If he accomplishes his goals the power he would have others exercise on his behalf would kill as many as did the expansionist Soviet Empire.
See, e.g. "The Opioid Crisis"
Where are the nutjobs like Alex Jones on the Left? Hiding in plain sight in endowed chairs at major universities, that's where.
C'mon! Is there any lefty imbecility too far fetched that you can't find some academic who more or less openly espouses it?
The reason folks like Bruni don't want to recognize these lefty nut jobs is because it is a vital function of the "moderate" left to hide from the rest of us just what happens on the extreme left in everyday venues, like colleges & universities. Bruni doesn't want to talk about the Alex Jones-es of the Left because it's part of his job description to not do so.
A quick example: Remember Rev. Wright, & his Black Liberation Theology? Well, the father of BLT is one Prof. James Cone. Do you think that it would be hard to find Prof. Cone during this contretemps? Did any major network interview him? No. Where was he hiding? At Union Theological Seminary, where he is a Distinguished Professor.
YoungHegelian
10% of the Left wants to openly attack the Right. 80% of the Left wants somebody else on the Left to attack the Right.
From your position, do the percentages seem about right?
It's the classic time traveler question--if you could go back in time, to the 1920's, and kill Hitler, would you? Well, Democrats are telling us Trump is Hitler, the Republicans are Nazis. So there it is, it's 1920's Germany. You have the chance to kill Hitler before the wars start, why haven't you done it yet?
That's the difference between Wilkenson and other liberals--he has the courage of his convictions. Otherwise, he is a completely normal average mainstream liberal. As people who know him have been saying, he was politically passionate, but he was a normal regular person. Nothing about him that would make you think he was unhinged. Because by their standards, he wasn't.
And Frank Bruni knows it.
Hodgkinson
Ho hum. The NY Times' stable of columnists remains the worst in the business. And Bruni isn't the worst of those. I'm not in the mood for anthropological research this sunny Sunday, so moving on ...
tim - if you really want to blow minds, would you go back in history and prevent the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BC? What impact would that have had on western civ?
Although Rush is waaaay over the top with his 24/7 defense of the King of Twitter, Commissar Trump, Limbaugh thankfully does not personally engage his adversaries on Twitter.
But i will admit that he and Sean and a host of right-wing talkers and bloggers dedicate show after show (or post after post) to the defense of poor Donald who lives for this attention and who therefore stirs the post every hour of every day. Perhaps the fallout is just beginning:
I am not sure I am able to continue blogging in the current environment. . . . The world seems to be moving away from intellectualism. I say this not because Trump voters were somehow rejecting intellectualism, but because intellectuals themselves seem to be rejecting it. They act like children, they are turning universities into totalitarian monocultures, and they compete with each other to craft mindless 140-character "gotchas" on Twitter. I challenge you to even find a forum today for intellectual exchange between people who disagree with one another. In politics, Trump clearly rejects intellectualism but for whatever reasons, the Democratic opposition has as well. ~Warren Meyer
Alex said...
tim - if you really want to blow minds, would you go back in history and prevent the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BC? What impact would that have had on western civ?
That particular event didn't change much. Octavian assumed exactly the same position as Julius shortly after. The only difference was he got to kill off a bunch of opposition and may have consolidated his power a little more than Julius would have.
This would be an example of how History is roughly linear. It is going a particular direction like a river and it moves downhill like a river moves. You are not going to really change where it ends up, just how it gets there.
The other side of this argument would be the Black Swan Event. There are some people on this page who may be able to carry this conversation.
The current discussion on this line would be What happened if Hillary had won? It seems like we are heading for the same outcome no matter who won in 2016. Without the cover of legitimacy for the left of having a sitting president direct federal forces the battle will be over much more quickly, but things are going to end up in the same place.
Achilles - my point was that if Julius Caesar had lived another 10-15 years, it might have allowed the Republic to live much longer than it did. The ascension of Octavian was the end of the Republic.
The Republic was long dead before Caesar hit the floor.
We live in a nation founded by men who believed they were justified in using violence to alter political arrangements they found unacceptable. Who is to say they were wrong? The Left believes that our current arrangements are unjust, and must be changed. They had believed that they were on the verge of accomplishing that change without violence. The last election showed them that they are much farther than they had supposed from achieving their goals within the existing political structure. They begin to see themselves as oppressed, and they contemplate ways and means.
The situation looks somewhat different to those of us on the Right. We tend to feel that an arrangement we found acceptable is being undermined by a collection of treacherous bastards who use the political system to force us to finance their crimes. Myself, I can think of lots of people who would look good hanging from lampposts. But I don't quite see how the arrangements I prefer can be preserved by violence. Once the sword is drawn, we will necessarily be living in a tyranny.
So, I would say that the Left is inclined to violence because violence is more compatible with their goals. When your goal is to seize another man's property by force, you might well prefer that the force be implicit, and the seizure accomplished by means of laws. But if you believe that the other man holds his property unjustly, then you will also believe that he deserves whatever degree of violence is required to make him open his hand.
The ascension of Octavian was the end of the Republic.
End in what sense? Formally or practically? Augustus adhered to the forms of the Roman constitution more scrupulously than did Caesar while he briefly held the imperium for life though in practical terms he was already a monarch with a whole room full of heirs apparent.
Looking back one will note that the Republic was on life support from the career of Sulla through to the final defeat of Antony. In Caesar's day, everybody damned the memory of Sulla in public but emulated him in private. If the conspirators had won at Philippi I doubt their "restored" Republic would endured ten years. Brutus was too fickle and Cassius was too brittle to have cemented a governing majority in the Assembly and Senate. A new civil war among the Optimates would likely have erupted sooner or later, sooner most likely, since they didn't agree on much of anything other than the Plebs had no opinions worth a moment's consideration.
If Trump is our Caesar then it is only because the Clintons and Company have been our Sulla.
What's bad is the left trying to Vince Foster our Republican congressmen.
Alex said...
Achilles - my point was that if Julius Caesar had lived another 10-15 years, it might have allowed the Republic to live much longer than it did. The ascension of Octavian was the end of the Republic.
No.
Crassus died and Pompey joined forces with the Senate.
Killing Caesar just abated the inevitable for 15 years and Octavian took over instead of Julius.
The Roman Empire was going to happen one way or another and a senate is a poor vehicle for hegemony. The people of Rome were going to have a leader lead them to what they wanted. Killing Caesar diverted the river around a 15 year bend and the river ended up were it was going to end up.
I also want to flesh out the ascension of both Julius and Octavian/Augustus a bit.
I find it creepy that both of them formed political triumvirates and subsequently undermined and subsumed their political adversaries. This in addition to riding military power almost identically.
What? You say that the Left is Fostering Republicans?
rhhardin said...
What's bad is the left trying to Vince Foster our Republican congressmen.
Jupiter said...
What? You say that the Left is Fostering Republicans?
They apparently also want to make us Rich.
I'm sorry but Bill Mather, John Oliver, and Rachel Maddox are not mainstream media.
vs.?
To make it a fair fight, it needs to be Bruni's grace and brains against Limblown's girth and grating buzzsaw voice.
They apparently also want to make us Rich.
$20 says your compensation and/or purchasing power will decrease more quickly/rise more slowly under a Republican administration and legislature than under a progressive Democrat.
If Trump is our Caesar then it is only because the Clintons and Company have been our Sulla.
All hail the valiant anti-Bill Clinton Republicans who took up the cause of preserving 1790's culture and society, if not the spirit of what it stood for!
If you meant Hillary I note that she never really wielded any power anything close to Sulla. But then, neither did Bill Clinton, really.
I'm sorry but Bill Mather, John Oliver, and Rachel Maddox are not mainstream media.
Correct. They are both more entertaining and more honest. And more informative.
The Romans had a military system designed for imposing their will upon other tribes, which by its nature tended to be attached more to its generals than to the State they served. This made it easy, and therefore perhaps inevitable, for those generals to use the military to impose their own will.
By the tome of the American Civil War, a more sophisticated system had been developed, in which the military establishment was under the control of the State. But this still left open the possibility, perhaps the inevitability, that the States would fight with one another.
We now have military establishments answerable to the Nations, and designed not merely to impose their will, but to utterly destroy another Nation. When I was young, many thought it inevitable that the Nations would destroy each other. That fear seems to have receded, although the capacity remains. But those who see the seeds of another Civil War in our current national division neglect the fact that there is no easy way for our mutual hatreds to express themselves militarily.
Additionally, the modern national State is so powerful that it is no longer possible to simply mind your own business. The State intrudes on every aspect of our lives. You will be made to care. Perhaps the political struggle at the national level has become so vicious precisely because there is no hope of any other road to power within the Nation, and only those who control the national power can hope to control their own lives.
So are the conservatives saying that killing Caesar was a good thing?
They themselves thought that they were "restoring" the republic. The state at the time might have been unstable and declining, but where's the evidence that the path they were on was inevitable? Killing Caesar was what made it inevitable.
Although conservative Optimates rejection of even the mildest of popular reforms for nearly if not at least a century was a very destabilizing thing to turn back from. Same thing as American conservatives have been doing for the last 35 years and today.
I too enjoy day drinking.
Well I guess that explains the poor quality of your contributions, Birkel.
Being an outstanding kick-ass Roman general was sort of a shortcut through the cursus honorum in itself. They were an empire from as soon as they could be one, nothing unusual for the day in that. But they took it to unusually addictive levels. This was an amoral society (by our or Judeo-Christian standards) addicted to violence and imposing its will, and that mentality - of succession by coups in anything but name, was what characterized a late republic almost as bloody in its exchange of power as the empire would soon become - if perhaps a little less tyrannical.
A cautionary tale, no doubt.
Not mainstream Leftists: all the hosts of all the shows on all the TV channels, except for the one or two conservatives left on FoxNEWS.
But Rush Limbaugh is definitely the heart of conservatism.
Seems reasonable.
But Rush Limbaugh is definitely the heart of conservatism.
Rush Limblahblob and Trump sure seem to think so. Just ask George Will.
George Will is from a more quaint time, when conservatives used to have to use their brains to make a respectable point. Now they just yell and scream and believe that the more bulgy neck veins they show, the more correct they are.
And their audiences apparently agree.
Toothless can enjoy a leisurely day here with us AlthouseHillbillies knowing that the fullest realization of his raw, undiluted hate-fantasies is lurking out there waiting to out-Hodgkinson Hodgkinson while both saving Toothless the effort and risk of fulfillment and, at the same time, offering him deniability for the outcome as he sucks down some suds on a Sunday afternoon.
That's how the lefties roll. Scratch one and there's a tyrant screaming to get out.
- Krumhorn
You sure seem to have an active and projection-filled, partisan fantasy life, Krumhorn. And look at what I found:
The lefties are hateful little shits, and it's only going to get worse.
Is your mirror broken or just massively fogged up?
George Will is from a more quaint time, when conservatives used to have to use their brains to make a respectable point. Now they just yell and scream and believe that the more bulgy neck veins they show, the more correct they are>
He certainly is. Using someone else's description, Will is one of those femmy, bow-tied defeat-monkey, turn-the-other-cheek capitulation conservatives who craves the petting hand of the leftie then in power. Trump's biggest problem is not the librul progs; his biggest problem is that class of institutionalized establishment femmy cons of which class Will is a prominent part.
- Krumhorn
Using someone else's description, Will is one of those femmy, bow-tied defeat-monkey, turn-the-other-cheek capitulation conservatives who craves the petting hand of the leftie then in power.
There is no point to conservatism - esp. in America - other than capitulation and defeat. They are the whimsical nostalgia mongerers, and prove it every day. How? Here's how:
1. America was founded as a post-enlightenment Lockean project in contravention of the traditional, monarchical ethno-state. Conservatism is strong on all the things it opposed. There were of course American conservatives at the founding; they naturally sympathized with the King and Toryism. The founding was a progressive and very liberal and enlightened thing, without precedent anywhere except perhaps in ancient Rome. So conservatives in America have a huge chip on their shoulder for a good reason: This country was founded on nothing of the things that they naturally gravitate to.
2. American conservatives really picked up on the "Hate the government!" thing, which means that any run they do for office is inherently fraught, self-defeating and destined for doom. It's hard to make a case for getting hired for an organization that you want to destroy and think shouldn't exist. Eventually, you can't remember why you're even in there or what you stand for or what you're doing. Hating what you've made it a point to make a living doing is a crazy-making thing that causes you to lose any sense of identity - which is what conservatives seem to be going through now.
I forgot my 3rd point:
American conservatives, because they are so afraid of change, or interpreting the constitution in a way that doesn't conflict with modern society and culture, believe that the constitution is best respected by pretending that we live/should live in a late 18th century society and culture, rather than in rationally applying the spirit of a constitutional principle to the the present in which we live.
In doing so, they make the constitution itself anachronistic, and find themselves increasingly at war with American society itself. Hence, their "culture wars." Things that can't be won over problems that can't be defined, all in the service of a personality that can't relinquish a need to control others in a way that it will never be able to do.
Conservatism is fear - fear of loss, and Americans are not a fearful people. We are a forward-looking people who find new ways to apply the spirit and instrument of our founding every day. Conservatives are just not cut out to promote that. They've had their heyday - and we see what it's led to: Both in 2008 and 2016 and in 1929. We need to quell this spasm of conservatism and ask it to allow the country's true heirs to lead things once again. As they always do when success and greatness is called for.
The lefties are hateful little shits, and it's only going to get worse.
Is your mirror broken or just massively fogged up?
Is there anything about that statement with which you take issue given the obvious coordination between the MSM, the Dem pols, the resistance by any means necessary, and the antifa goons?
At its emotional peak, the Tea Party was behaved, non-violent, never ever advocated any violence (in spite of occasional leftie and La Rouche plants), and they ALWAYS left a place cleaner than they found it. No conservative has EVER taken a sack of cement to a freeway overpass to drop into a bus of Dem delegates traveling to a national convention. Police NEVER have to have arrest pens ready to take conservative demonstrators outside a Dem convention. It has NEVER been the case that conservative demonstrators wear black face masks while carrying backpacks full of weapons as they tear through streets breaking windows, stealing merchant goods, setting fires and terrorizing others.
Seriously! Lefties are nasty, hateful little shits.
- Krumhorn
At its emotional peak, the Tea Party was behaved, non-violent, never ever advocated any violence (in spite of occasional leftie and La Rouche plants), and they ALWAYS left a place cleaner than they found it.
Cleaner, poorer, with fewer insured, declining living standards, more wealth shifted to the top (T.P. founded by Koch Industries), more pollution and less respect for science and education - the very things that improve our lives and their quality in the first place.
No one's impressed with your ridiculous, nonsensical rallies. When the things you stand for are more people dying by being priced out of medical access, and more people in poverty by not knowing how to regulate the same Wall Street that funds your campaigns, and your wars - that's a pretty violent thing to do to Americans.
So no one's impressed. If it was you who was able to make the connection between policy and the lives it lost, then you'd be a little less slavish in voicing your anger, too.
Go be nice and quiet as you slavishly supplicate King Koch and Tyrant Trump. I'm sure they will do wonders for your life - let alone your ability to live it without the entire game being tilted against you.
Krumhorn would have been a real hoot at the Boston Tea Party and Second Continental Congress - appealing for calm, well-mannered behavior. "Never mind that they're killing us! We need to show that we are well-behaved, obedient little Tories! Yes, we threaten "2nd-amendment remedies," but surely don't mean them!"
"We don't mean anything we say! We are conservatives, after all. We live by myth."
Although we do have dirty mouths.
- Krumhorn
God, a Ritmo thread!
Bye.
Bruno is a hack. Twitter and other social media was filled with thousands of MAINSTREAM Democrats cheerleading their shooter.
And back here, Sunsong was the only Leftie who offered sincere and heartfelt sympathy for the Republicans who were gunned down.
To borrow a sentiment from one of Bruni's fellow MAINSTREAM Democrat Journo-Lists, hee needs to be shoved through a plate glass window.
Conservatism is fear - fear of loss, and Americans are not a fearful people. We are a forward-looking people who find new ways to apply the spirit and instrument of our founding every day. Conservatives are just not cut out to promote that. They've had their heyday - and we see what it's led to: Both in 2008 and 2016 and in 1929. We need to quell this spasm of conservatism and ask it to allow the country's true heirs to lead things once again. As they always do when success and greatness is called for.
You display complete ignorance about the origins, foundation, and purpose of American conservatism. It has its roots in classical liberalism of the 18th and 19th centuries that prized political freedom, economic freedom, and personal liberty. In the 20th century, conservatives parted ways with the New Deal and the ridiculous ideas of utopian progress that can only be enforced by acts of government that diminish us all.
American conservatives have as much in common with the early revolutionary loyalists as American libruls today have in common with classical liberalism. And in case you missed the point, there is nothing in common in either case.
We believe that Western civilization has done more to elevate and improve the lives of everyone than any other. We believe that America is an exceptional place that has been a fabulously successful human experiment. As a consequence, we believe that the Constitution (flaws and all) is even more important today than ever, and that leftie moral relativism and grandiose notions of social justice and equal outcomes is an essential evil that will drag us all down. That you believe you have better ideas about what the Constitution should say is beyond laughable.
Rather than fear that drives conservatives today, it is confidence that if left to our own efforts and devices, we are each far more likely to find success and fulfillment in our lives than if big gub'ment tries to assure it for us. And, of course, big gub'ment with hateful shiny-pants'd entitlement-driven, envious, victim lefties pulling the levers of power, we will find ourselves enslaved. Reedukation kamps will dot the landscape with more frequency than drug and alcohol rehab centers.
Which is why the 2d Amendment is so important. One day, it may very well be necessary..........but I get ahead of myself.
- Krumhorn
Cleaner, poorer, with fewer insured, declining living standards, more wealth shifted to the top (T.P. founded by Koch Industries), more pollution and less respect for science and education - the very things that improve our lives and their quality in the first place.
No one's impressed with your ridiculous, nonsensical rallies. When the things you stand for are more people dying by being priced out of medical access, and more people in poverty by not knowing how to regulate the same Wall Street that funds your campaigns, and your wars - that's a pretty violent thing to do to Americans.
So no one's impressed. If it was you who was able to make the connection between policy and the lives it lost, then you'd be a little less slavish in voicing your anger, too.
Which brings us back to the topic of this blog post. Reading your prose, is it any wonder your leftie soldier tried to whack some Republican congressmen?
You should be so very proud.
- Krumhorn
Ritmo is an interesting case study in the chickens coming home to roost. He's played this smug superior sophisticate who oddly needs to sate his ego by picking at "those people" for years and years, blithely expecting little or no consequence for his divisiveness.
All the while, slowly radicalizing the people that will one day drag him out into the snow.
Alex Jones. I read about him all the time, here, and on left leaning blogs as an example of a right wing nutjob. None, not one, of the alt-right websites I read on a regular basis ever reference him. Even here, he's mentioned, but never quoted. What does he believe in? Is he really a right wing leader if no one on the right pays attention to him? What's his website traffic figures? Are they driven by the same people visiting again and again? What is his website? I could google it, but since he has no influence on the thinking of anyone else I read, why should I waste the time? Best I can figure out he's some sort of a conspiracy believing nutjob. Which pretty much describes 90% of the liberals I know. So they likely have more in common with him then I do.
Every other name mentioned here, Frank Bruni, Russ Douthat, Bill Maher (PHHS '74, I'm '73), Rush, Rachel Maddow, Geroge Will, all of them I see referenced on a regular basis here and elsewhere, with working links to what they've written so I can peruse it myself. Alex Jones? He's a boogeyman for the left, but no one ever links him, which to me shows he has nothing of import to add to any discussion. Why are people obsessed with a conspiracy nutjob nobody? Why is the left so eager to link him to the right when no one on the right links to him?
When a person admits, in a thread about rhetoric that inflamed the unstable, his belief that conservatives are anachronistic and valueless in a modern society because they impoverish and kill, without irony, conservatives have their answer.
Noted.
It is my opinion, that mass murderers (even those who are unsuccessful), have very little interest in politics. Probably very little cognizance of anything, beyond which the brain stem controls.
You couldn't say that Oswald was political. McVeigh wasn't political.
At their core was a hatred X, that they justified using some thing Y.
The people to fear are the white trash losing their welfare. They will want to take you with them.
Anything, save finding a job.
You display complete ignorance about the origins, foundation, and purpose of American conservatism. It has its roots in classical liberalism of the 18th and 19th centuries that prized political freedom, economic freedom, and personal liberty. In the 20th century, conservatives parted ways with the New Deal and the ridiculous ideas of utopian progress that can only be enforced by acts of government that diminish us all.
Says who? It's a phony movement. Conservatism is conservatism and it's all part of the same bullshit as any conservatism anywhere is about. Only difference is in Europe you have ethno-nation-state with national mythologies to ground your conservatism in whereas here you just lionize the founders instead and pretend that their time was a magical one that we should somehow find a way to return to.
And that's why you ultimately hate liberalism - of whatever century. Liberalism means that humans can use their wits and reason to improve their own lot: Collectively as well as individually. That's why it accounted for the industrialization of the 19th century that you pretend you can avoid accounting for. Locke didn't have anything to say about the iniquities of an industrial economy because he lived before industrialization. He lived before wealth extremes made participation of the peasants in a graft-riven political system impossible.
The anti-New Dealers' results are in: 40 years of Reaganism have crushed the working man. You know that the working poor and even the majority of the country are experiencing declining living standards - and you lie to yourself about how it was taxes that done it. It wasn't taxes. They don't pay enough of that for them to matter. It wasn't social services - which incidentally have improved outcomes every time. You're at war with the people if you follow through on taking away their SSI, Medicare, or Obamacare so this is just one more of your self-serving lies that you have to avoid responsibility for. They won't let you do it because they know better than you what works for them. It's not making them dependent; it's giving them a playing field more level to the rich folks that you think government should focus on and cater to over them.
No, instead you have to revert to your anti-liberal authoritarianism and worship a belligerent almost-billionaire on account of his wealth and unstable temperament. Makes him easier to command your following.
conservatives have their answer.
Noted.
Conservatives make up their answer no matter what the evidence says anyway, because emotions and conflict are more important to them than facts and intellectual integrity.
They are and have nearly always been at war with universities.
They are at war with the judiciary.
They are at war with whatever media is most successful.
They hate information. They have an agenda. They demonstrate the lack of respect and legitimacy that they accord the opposition and the majority of the country who agree with it because all they care about is power.
I have a litmus test. Every time a conservative bitches about how I know he only cares about his party and it's power, I challenge him. I say, oh yeah? Then how about you stop gerrymandering. Keep the polls open everywhere for as long as it takes a working person to get home from work and vote. Let democracy really have its say.
Of course, these challenges always fall on deaf ears. They know that they can only win and pass their agenda over the heads of the people if they deny them their voice, and implement policies that hurt them. Hell, even the congressional Republicowards just tried to keep the press from accessing details on the secret healthcare/no-care bill they were trying to write.
Again, secrecy. What they want is not what the people want and they know it and don't care. They think they know better than you and that they're better than you and that you deserve a lot less than they do.
Ritmo is an interesting case study in the chickens coming home to roost. He's played this smug superior sophisticate who oddly needs to sate his ego by picking at "those people" for years and years, blithely expecting little or no consequence for his divisiveness.
All the while, slowly radicalizing the people that will one day drag him out into the snow.
Anyone looking for a violent murder fantasy can find one right there in this violent commenter's personal attack. He does it pretty regularly, of course. Just about every other thread.
VIolence is all he knows. He doesn't even understand how unpopular the Republican agenda he faps for is, so he calls anyone against it "divisive."
And he can't take on any of the substance of what I'm saying so apparently declares me to be superior to him by saying I'm "smug superior sophisticate." I don't recall talking about myself all that much, though. It looks like he's projecting onto me the things that he feels when words fail him.
Reason already did (fail him). This is a guy who obviously only knows of a violent way to get what he wants - even going so far as to be the only one to defend a teenage sociopath who saw to it to make sure her "friend" ended his life and gave her the sense of control, sympathy and attention she craved.
Moral of the story: Anyone who wants "Fenne" as a friend had better have a death wish. You're better off making friends with the blades of a farming combine. That really is how violent and sick he is. Simply can't find any function in a society where killing people is not how you get things done. He doesn't even see how much he reveals in his words to the contrary.
God, a Ritmo
It's good to know that prayer is a scoundrel's last refuge every time I'm winning.
That, and running away.
Run away, Michael K.! Run away!
Oh Lord! I can't stand to hear what he might say!
I will instead, run away!
'He doesn't even understand how unpopular the Republican agenda he faps for is, so he calls anyone against it "divisive." '
I'm not sure there is a Republican agenda any more. At this point, Republicans are reduced to advocating less of whatever the Democrats advocate. But judging by the results of the last few elections, that is a fairly popular agenda in most of the country.
Assertions are fun.
Can I get more but with less repetition and one argument that exposes the assumptions from which you build your case?
Angry day drunks we the bestest.
I can condense all the above by TTR to "Is too."
You can follow ritmos alcohol consumption by his posts.
Early, but still afternoon.
That's funny Rusty.
If you were able to read, then the posts wouldn't seem incomprehensible to you.
Here is an organization that can help you with your literacy problem. That way, you might actually learn to engage complex, adult issues in writing.
TTR's entire rant takes off from an obvious misreading of Achilles' 2:00pm comment. The capital R and the context both show that Achilles was referring to Seth Rich when he wrote "They apparently also want to make us Rich". Achilles suggests that the Left wants to make us (not TTR, of course) dead, not that the Right wants to make us small-r rich.
Reading skills, what would we do without them? Hijack threads ever more efficiently and take them off into the ice-cold vacuum of inanity, apparently, by failing to understand the most basic point at issue.
Keep running your mouth, Ritmo.
Just keep pushing it.
Please.
You bet, Jim.
I intend to make full use of my 1st amendment rights and the respect that Althouse has for them.
You would, too - if you had anything worth saying or anything that anyone wanted to or found interesting to hear.
Until then, I'm happy to do the talking for you.
Says who? It's a phony movement. Conservatism is conservatism and it's all part of the same bullshit as any conservatism anywhere is about. Only difference is in Europe you have ethno-nation-state with national mythologies to ground your conservatism in whereas here you just lionize the founders instead and pretend that their time was a magical one that we should somehow find a way to return to.
Well, I am heartened to learn that feckless, foam-flecked, leftie firebrands like Toothless haven't a clue who their enemy is. I guess that would explain why they consistently lose local, state, and federal elections outside of their clavens and cells. Such insularity and smug superiority prevents them from truly understanding and knowing their ideological opponents.
And within their clavens and cells, they have massive budget deficits, economic stagnation, outrageous confiscatory taxes, and mountains of unfounded pension liabilities for slothful public sector union employees.
Keep it up, Toothless, and all of your collectivist fellow travelers. Revel in your ignorance. However, before your inflammatory rhetoric charges up another of your leftie acolytes into a killing spree, consider that paybacks can be brutal if a clear pattern emerges. Of course, if you are one of those 1 down and 238 to go fellas, there's an especially hot seat in hell reserved just for you right up close to the edge of all that sulphury stuff. My Imaginary Friend will see to it.
- Krumhorn
There one fundamental conclusion to draw from reading the comments of Toothless and Inga: Hodgkinson is absolutely in the mainstream of the Democrat base. As are they.
You go Big Mike. Criminalize the majority of the country.
Who says conservatives don't have big goals for the type of big government they want to execute?
It'll be one hell of a project to build and run prisons big enough to house tens to hundreds of millions of Americans. But you big thinkers did it before. Remember the mass incarceration of nonviolent young black drug offenders that you and your friend Bill Clinton legislated? Surely if you made it criminal to be young, black and recreationally high then you can make it a crime to register in or vote for any party that isn't the "Republicoward" party.
You can do it! Think big! Just get that wall built, first. It'll be hard to find a tax base large enough to fund it, though - once you've conducted your mass incarceration. Maybe the Mexican government will pay for it.
Make no small plans, Mike!
Majority because fewer of our politicians are elected, nationwide.
#LeftistILLogic
Well, I am heartened to learn that feckless, foam-flecked, leftie firebrands like Toothless haven't a clue who their enemy is.
Well, if your own self-analysis is any indication, you believe that they're people who think they're 17th century liberals. Ergo, they are liberals who feel that they lost the ability to cooperatively reason their way through to a solution to any of the massive number of social or economic problems that arose only after industrialization.
You're a liberal who never learned how to cope with life or politics in an industrial economy, by your reckoning. Interesting way to be relevant - to no one. Except the owners of this economy.
The rest of what you wrote was just the typical juvenile nonsense. And you got to invent a new pseudo-word on top of it all: "Clavens." Bravo.
#Assertions
Majority because fewer of our politicians are elected, nationwide.
Well not when you gerrymander your way around things and close polls too early.
Poll them on the issues, Birkenstein. See who they agree with. Take their Obamacare away! Re-write the Trumpcare bill behind closed doors! Go to their town halls and get booed at and shouted down and tomatoes thrown at you! Oh, you brave leader, you!
Trumplestiltskin won, so he rounded out the state election tickets against a bad Democratic candidate. Anyone who knows anything about the American electoral system understands this. Which is why you don't know anything about it. Look up the term "downticket races".
What a horrible education you must have had - to regularly require me to fill in the many gaps in your basic knowledge of America. Sad!
The Toothless Revolutionary said...
A bunch of garbage.
You are back on your conservatives/republicans = everything evil liberals/democrats = everything good idiocy. Really you are terribly stupid like this.
And it is noted that you continue to make excuses for leftist violence and never condemn it. Every time leftists take power they turn that country into a shit hole. Watching the Occupy Movement tells you why.
Every now and then you can engage. But most of the time you are really just an unconscious wind-up hate doll. I am tired. Tired of trying to pull you people out of your world of hate and engage you people. I have had it with the abuse and crap.
I would recommend everyone take an interest in the success of the country and the lawfully elected president.
Pretending at moral superiority is fun.
Voters won't mind it.
So much Leftist winning.
Gerrymander?
You mean by elected officials?
So you are saying because more Republicans get elected they set the district lines to benefit themselves.
That really proves the point that more Republicans are elected.
#LeftistILLogic
Ritmo still at it ?
Jeeez.
The Open is just finished
Buchanan's new book about Nixon is excellent. I recommend it.
Of course, you could all stay here and let Ritmo suck more IQ points out.
The Toothless Revolutionary said...
What a horrible education you must have had - to regularly require me to fill in the many gaps in your basic knowledge of America. Sad!
Obama destroyed the Democrat Party
Republicans control 33 state legislatures. Democrats 13.
There are 33 Republican governors, 16 democrats and 1 independent.
I really don't like republicans. The alternative is pretty much non-existent. We will be a one party country to our detriment unless you stop being idiots.
But you are completely incapable of thinking about this logically. You are warped by hate. I could work through the scenarios and show you a path that the left could take to peacefully obtain influence again politically but I am not going to deal with a juvenile shithead.
Let me know when you want to grow up and have an adult conversation. I am going to go work on some drills.
You are back on your conservatives/republicans = everything evil liberals/democrats = everything good idiocy. Really you are terribly stupid like this.
Not as stupid as the people that vote for them. Where is all the winning? Where is the success? What metrics will you even agree to? None that I can see. When all you're offering is ideological and political cheerleading, then there's no discussion to be had. Hell, anything that Trump doesn't want reported or that embarrasses him he calls "fake." You cannot engage someone like that, and neither can you engage anyone who defends it. Even his kids regularly spill the beans on how bad he is - from Russian financing of his post-2008 recession golf course openings to bilking charities.
And it is noted that you continue to make excuses for leftist violence and never condemn it. Every time leftists take power they turn that country into a shit hole.
1932 - 1968: Golden Age of America. And its power and prestige. (Democrats)
1980 - Now: Continuous decline in everything except apparently getting the collapsing Soviet empire to collapse more quickly (Republicans)
I would recommend everyone take an interest in the success of the country and the lawfully elected president.
Get me an honest president who knows how to follow the laws without having him and his cabinet hire out every D.C. personal lawyer first.
The guy wouldn't know the meaning of success if it slapped him in the face. Everything for him is about marketing and image - i.e. PHONY. He talks big. You people who've never been to New York don't know how it works. He runs his mouth endlessly, and everything that comes out of it is quicksand. But he's verbally rough! and you naive ingenues are taken aback by that with utmost adoration and infatuation. But the rest of us have seen this show before. It doesn't end well. Even now he can't take a break from obsessing about what people say about him to just do anything right for a change. He's out of his depth and can't stand that people have caught on.
So it's a fatal presidency. He can't even STAND to be investigated because he knows that something will come out. All his life he's been hiding and lying and puffing himself up. He's the Republican Bill Clinton - and Bill Clinton should know because he's the one who convinced him to run. And he will take down and expose the entire house of cards that his party has built itself on. Because he will fight to the bitter end all the things that are lost and that he can't do anything about. But he has an ally in this: Every other disillusioned American who wants something impossible in which to believe. They still think he's their champion. If life sucks for them, then maybe his uncontrollable anger is just a way of identifying with it.
He doesn't identify with you, Achilles. He's not going to get you to become like him, either. He won't make anything better in this country for you, he doesn't give a damn. And he will make every noise possible to make you think his fight is your fight.
It's not. Jump ship. This guy is a toxic dumpster fire and getting closer and closer to indictment every day. He can't help it, remember. It's all about him. You either swear your life unto him or he dumps you. And then when he dumps you anyway he tells you it's because you weren't loyal enough.
Get out in the world more. There are charlatans everywhere - just with less talent and power. It's what makes him dangerous, but not invincible. The American system is stronger than him and it will bring his phony presidential magic show down before you know it.
And then the right beginning can get started.
You will thank me later. Until then, defend him like the Clintonites keep defending the Clintons. You are both part of the problem.
Obama destroyed the Democrat Party.
I don't disagree with that. I have no reason to disagree with it. It's about as correct a statement as we can make in modern politics.
It's interesting. I don't think we disagree as much about the big things. But the little things sure do whip us up against each other.
Ritmo still at it ?
I'm glad you keep coming back here to enjoy reading it, Michael K.
Come back any time you like. And any time you can do so without fearing that "IQ points will be sucked out."
Why did all those Democrats gerrymander all those seats for Republicans, again?
How does causation work?
TTR @4:30PM,
Exactly.
You go Big Mike. Criminalize the majority of the country.
Not the majority, Toothless. Not ever the majority.
June 2017 marks the time when individual Democrats find themselves at a crossroads. Do they stay with their extremists, like Toothless and Inga and the talking heads on MSNBC and CNN? Or do they try to make their way back to the center and find solutions for the problems that eight years of a weak administrator and feckless foreign policy have inevitably led to?
I'm not holding my breath.
Come on, Big Mike. Be fair. TTR thinks Democrats gerrymandered the country so Republicans could be a majority.
Otherwise, Democrats are a majority. Pauline Kael just knows it must be true.
"He doesn't identify with you, Achilles. He's not going to get you to become like him, either. He won't make anything better in this country for you, he doesn't give a damn. And he will make every noise possible to make you think his fight is your fight"
The Achilles of Trumpworld still believe...
June 2017 marks the time when individual Democrats find themselves at a crossroads. Do they stay with their extremists, like Toothless and Inga and the talking heads on MSNBC and CNN? Or do they try to make their way back to the center and find solutions for the problems that eight years of a weak administrator and feckless foreign policy have inevitably led to?
I'm not holding my breath.
You can't criminalize non-Republican political affiliation. Just can't be done. The countries that Trump admires do things like that, but we live in a freer system. There will be no "with the Republicans or against the Republicans" moment in America.
I notice you again fail to provide me with a GOP policy that polls with majority support. Their president's support is falling to 30%. Keep being a true believer, though!
You are a fascist if you think that this is a sign of an effective administrator. Talk about WEAK! His ego is so damn fragile that unless his cocksucker cabinet sucks up to him for 11 minutes straight then he will be "sad." ;-( That's not an administrator's job. An administrator needs to be able to hear all the news - good or bad - his responsibility or otherwise - to make effective decisions. But that's ok, because he'll pass the buck on that, too. The last effective decision Trump ever made was.. well... Hmmm. Maybe once again you can tell me when that was.
And the foreign policy BS swipe was precious by a long shot. It's not America's job to favor Saudi ISIS-allied Sunni terrorists over the Shias who keep them on their toes. It's not America's job to give Putin a pass in destabilizing Europe. It's not America's job (nor its interest) to weaken its commitment to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's not America's job to insult Mexico with demands that aren't Mexico's problem. You are obviously a socially ineffective guy who mistakes bravado, BS talk and bullying with something other than "fecklessness." An un-feckless foreign policy might put planet over country and ask itself why allying with Syria and Nicaragua in the feel good moment of the 19th century for the dying coal industry is a good idea.
Even the only Secretary of State that Trump could get to work with him disagrees with his bozo boss. Trump sent destroyers to Australia and talked about how they were going to North Korea. Our enemies realize what an unskilled shit-for-brains this guy is, and they're testing him and keeping one step ahead of him at every turn. And boy does Trump like disagreeing with him! I think he feels that a confusing foreign policy is a way to exercise leadership in the world. He weakens America every day.
Republicans got a marketing guy, an ad man, to be the CEO, and scratch themselves wondering why Americans aren't awed by his administrative and executive skills.
LOL!
As TTR has said repeatedly, he only comments to disrupt.
That's why he ignores the implications of every argument, as he throws our hot button words like gerrymandering. The history of Democrat gerrymandering, well that is a whole different story.
Dishonesty for the purposes of disruption.
People who don't mind thinking for a change don't find reasoned arguments and solid facts to be disruptive.
Birkel, Ritmo can be an amusement from a certain perspective - I'm waiting for that awkward moment when he finally realizes... a truly intelligent sophisticate wouldn't waste his hours and days trolling a blog. It's too pathetic.
He's a fraud. He gets off on the trolling, it fills some hole in his life. Don't look too deep though, you feel only pity for the sorry bastard.
Stupidity like yours is harmful to society. I enjoy exposing it.
It's a good cause. Like volunteering in a soup kitchen. Or even in Femme's regular kitchen.
Jason: "Most of Bruni artcle really about criticizing left and media"
Uh...yeaaaah... I'm gonna have to uhm... yeaaaah...disagree with you there, Bob. Bruni has been hacky...and had some problems with his TPS reports. :)
He gets Rush wrong, misidentifying why Rush mocks the Left, likely due to projection on his part. Rush is not about "savaging" the Left to incite hatred.
Bruni also compares Birthers to antivax "loons", distorting their beliefs so he can marginalize them as loons. A bit of an own goal if you are arguing against partisan propaganda. I'm not going into them too deeply but... 1) while I never bought into the birther complaints, there were indeed problems with Obama's background and paperwork. They had a legit concern, and 2) the antivax movement got its legs from a part reviewed scietific study published in one of the world's most prestigious medical journals, the Lancet. It was later retracted due to fraud, but these people weren't anti-science.
Bruni makes a similar bias foul when he touches on global warming. The alarmists get associated with Nobel scientists, the skeptics get tarred with Koch Brothers.
But the worst is Bruni blaming the President the current tone. It's the short skirt offense, he was asking for it.
Taken all together, Bruni presents the same old stench, just a bit fainter: "today's political climate is horrid, but you people on the Right aren't just wrong, you're heretics, evildoers, holocaust deniers, racist sexist homophobes blah blah blah."
I think the point of Bruni's article is to give elite leftists cover, employing a combination of gaslighting and th quo. So they can continue to shout "Resist Heir Trump! #HuntRepublicans!" without and guilt or sympathy for the Republican Congressmen shot down.
Now... how much time would ya say you spend on these TPS reports? :)
A guy who thinks it's great to get teenage boys to commit suicide chimes in to complain about "gaslighting."
Someone is living in an alternative reality where responsibility and integrity doesn't apply.
Ritmo: "exposing stupidity...like volunteering in a soup kitchen"
Is that what you tell yourself at night? You're on a righteous crusade to expose stupidity at the Holy City of Althouse?
Heh. I've had your number for quite some time. Your energies are destructive not creative, you're a sophist who squanders his gifts of intelligence on petty partisan hatred, destroying any credibility, respect or faith people had in you. No one likes you, no one wants you here.
And I suspect you already know all this. No doubt it's a story that's been repeated over and over again in your life.
Only thing I can't figure - why can't you pull out of it?
Ritmo: "a guy who thinks its greatvto get teenage boys to kill themselves"
Ha. What a distortion of my position. Bad shot, Ritmo, you flubbed the retort. I must be spot on in my analysis of your life pattern. Because suddenly you've let emotion trump reason. Not so smart after all, not such a good troll either.
Kinda sad really. Waste of a good mind. Oh well. You let me know if you need help picking out that shotgun. Goalkeepers Union and all.
All of your insults are about how you think I inflate my intelligence for my own benefit. Hey, if you think I'm stupid or wrong, there's a way to demonstrate that. Show me what I said that was wrong.
You don't do that. You instead think that, like Trump, I care what you think about me. Whether you think I'm smart or not. I assure you I don't give a rat's ass what anyone thinks about that - let alone a psychopathic, violent and vile teenage suicide advocate like you.
Nope. Caring what people think about them is for your weak-minded president and his cavalcade of cocksuckers - like certain of his followers. Speaking of whom, talk about destructive.
Now back to your apocalypse bunker. Await further instructions from GOP Central Command there. FOX News will broadcast direct to it and all the people gathered inside. The loonies that like you and want you there.
TTR said...
1932 - 1968: Golden Age of America. And its power and prestige. (Democrats)
1980 - Now: Continuous decline in everything except apparently getting the collapsing Soviet empire to collapse more quickly (Republicans)
Oh dear. Please put a little more thought into it than that.
The history of the US economy has been the citizens innovating and creating and the government trying to keep up with them and attach itself.
Michael K tried to make the assertion that republicans won in 1994 and somehow lead to the economy exploding. The democrats try to claim responsibility for the 90's. It is all a joke. Neither party of corrupt shitheads had anything to do with the tech boom.
The tech economy took off and it took the government years to figure out how to attach itself and stamp it down. The reason the tech economy does so well is because it keeps moving faster than the jackholes in government trying to suck the life out of it. If manufacturing, energy and other industries had the freedom tech does they would be exploding too.
What I find really interesting is the people that get wealthy in Tech immediately turn around and buy government help suppressing their competition. They find allies in bureaucracy which naturally tries to stifle innovation that escapes it's power.
Because suddenly you've let emotion trump reason. Not so smart after all, not such a good troll either.
Kinda sad really. Waste of a good mind. Oh well. You let me know if you need help picking out that shotgun. Goalkeepers Union and all.
Talk about emotion over reason. By what "reasoning" do you think that everyone else is as great a fan of suicide and as obsessed with death and violence as you are?
You give away more and more of your game with every comment. You must really hate life. And last I heard, hate was an emotion. So was sadness.
Hell, even if you don't enjoy life or think it's over-rated, that's one hell of an emotional problem. You're probably one of those dissociated delusionals. Just sleepwalking through life and wanting desperately for it to end. Hoping against hope that you can finally experience what it is that happened to all the people you enjoyed killing. The sweet release from existing in a life that only values a man for his wits, charm, kindness and other things that disgust you. If only you could mow them all down - the only thing in life that actually gives you pleasure.
The Toothless Revolutionary said...
You can't criminalize non-Republican political affiliation. Just can't be done. The countries that Trump admires do things like that, but we live in a freer system. There will be no "with the Republicans or against the Republicans" moment in America.
You can quote that for truth. The only thing I hate more than the violent little socialist shits running around the country agitating to take my stuff are the vichy republicans in congress and the paid media traitors that pretend to be "conservative" and talk about how shitty Trump voters are at cocktail parties with their fellow oligarch pets.
If they somehow manage to impeach Trump I will tell you this. It will be he Republicans that helped that go first.
TTR said...
He doesn't identify with you, Achilles. He's not going to get you to become like him, either. He won't make anything better in this country for you, he doesn't give a damn. And he will make every noise possible to make you think his fight is your fight.
Who does give a damn? I don't give a shit if Trump likes me or cares about me. It isn't his job to be a nice guy or make me feel good or really do a damn thing for me. Trump whether you like him or not understands that the best things this country makes and does are made by citizens, not government.
I used to want an honest good person to be president. That didn't work. Neither party ever nominated a person I wanted to vote for. They were all pretty much corrupt shitheads that were serving other people and they would pretend to be "for the little guy."
Now we have a ridiculous monstrosity of a government that is constantly in my face. Every business I have started in the last 15 years has put at least 30% of it's costs into government compliance. The Pot Business was over 60%. Fuck that.
I want an asshole. Trump fits the bill. He is lashing about and causing pain in DC. The more people he fires the fewer of them are hassling me. Hopefully he makes all people hate the government.
Ritmo: "Trump won't make anything better for you"
Sure he will, already has. As someone over at Ace said: "The Left isn't outraged at Trump because they fear he will take away their rights; the Left is outraged because Trump is giving rights back to the rest of us"
Go back to gaslighting your mom.
@ Achilles, I hear ya. Still bracing myself for the Sudden But Inevitable Betrayal. The Republican Establishment is more concerned with losing invited to Martha's Vineyard than representing their constituents.
I quit the party last fall when Ryan gave away a $1 trillion omnibus to promote "bipartisan unity". I'd really like to rub his nose in all the bloodsrains on that baseball diamond.
Reality slaps CNN in the face.
When the things you stand for are more people dying by being priced out of medical access, and more people in poverty by not knowing how to regulate the same Wall Street that funds your campaigns, and your wars - that's a pretty violent thing to do to Americans.
"The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the power of the dollar and the power of the whip, ought to learn the difference on his own hide– as, I think, he will."
It's trite on the center-right to say this, but "Actions have consequences." Liberals seem to think that does not apply to them.
Keep stirring the racial pot as Obama did; present hatred of the President as political pornography (rather than expressing principled opposition to his positions); accuse your political opponents of not just error, but being heartless inhuman monsters... there are consequences to these things. And while a purveyor of such is not legally responsible when someone with "issues" takes them too literally, there is a moral connection.
This applies to the other side as well, but right-wing verbal or visual savagery is almost always condemned by others on the Right, whereas on the Left it is met with silence or approval. Peopole on the right will defend Richard Spencer's right to speak, but no one defends what he says. Contrast with a multitude of examples from the other side, but for now let's just say the awards Yale gave to students who berated the Christakises--THAT is the difference--both sides have crazies but one side condemns and isolates its own, while the other side encourages ever worse behavior.
Wasn't the shooter a mainstream Democratic voter? That's my impression, unless you say his hero, Bernie Sanders, isn't part of the mainstream. But I'm sure "liberal" Democrats would be even handed if the shooter had asked, "Are those Democrats?" then opened fire on Democrats on the ball field. Just as they would have been even handed if, when Obama was president, someone staged a production of JULIUS CAESAR with that Obama lookalike who played Satan in that made-for-tv Bible movie playing Caesar.
TTR
I did demonstrate how you are wrong. And then you changed the subject. Your goal is distraction. This is the wrong crowd.
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