Karl’s post earlier today on Bill Moyers’ execrable (and predictable) attempt to rehabilitate Barack Obama by way of softening the edges on one of his more notorious cultural proxies has brought out a number of Obamateers, several of whom are clearly first time readers of this site.
Among the most courteous of these is a fellow named Jack Foster, who makes a number of claims worth responding to. First, Jack writes:
20 years? So what. I know that people here don’t want to allow Wright to offer a defense. Hey, judgement is easier without letting somebody express their point of view. And I think it is fair to judge Wright as a racist. Hey, we’re all a bit racist! But is that all he is? He’s _just_ a racist? No. He’s done great things for the poor, and the black community within which he lives. But it doesn’t help your cause to humanize him, does it?
I think your points are fair. Let’s debate Black Liberation Theology. Hey, it’s a new philosophy to me. But I wonder if people really care about Black Liberation Theology.
First and foremost, this debate is about smearing Barack Obama.
And the nature of the smear? Well, I’ll let Jack explain that, as well:
The press, particularly ABC and Fox, have been very irresponsible regarding Reverend Wright. He has been used as a tool to smear Obama with the association; I think the apt label would be “Racial McCarthyismâ€Â. The reports about Wright have been extremely shallow  mostly just the playing and re-playing of two or three sound bytes over and over without any context. Yes, this is what passes for journalism in the United States these days! How can anybody defend this? Therefore, for Protein Wisdom to criticize Moyers as shallow? Come on now! You might not like Reverend Wright, but you can’t credibly criticize Moyers as “shallow†for providing a more in-depth, holistic look. After all, what had previously been presented by the MSM can only be labeled as caricature.
I think Karl does a fine job pointing out where and how Moyers framed his questions and led his subject in such a way to achieve a desired rhetorical end — to, in essence, frame the effect of the interview, taken in its entirety, by finessing both its tone and its relative factual and contextual depth — so I won’t re-argue the point about the Moyers interview being shallow, except to say that shining more light on a subject doesn’t always illuminate it in a way that speaks to its essential truth. Which is why Hollywood DPs are paid the big bucks to keep leathery-looking old-timers passable as objects of sexual longing or proxies for masculine heroism.
Or, put another way, attempts at damage control — simply by virtue of softening the subject or allowing him to back pedal, misdirect, and frame previous comments in ways he may not have initially intended them to be framed (in short, allowing him to repackage the message for a different audience, one he’s found is hostile to the original message as presented) — are not necessarily more “in-depth” simply by virtue of being longer and presented in an interview format. Else infomercials might come to count as news.
But having said that, I will address a few other of Jack’s points.
First, the claim that nobody here is really interested in having a debate about Black Liberation Theology. As a simple site search both here and at the Pub shows, this assertion is clearly unfounded — and was unfairly dismissive of the work Karl, MC and others have done here exploring Black Liberation Theology, both as a social movement tied to religion, and as a religious movement tied to politics.
Secondly, any “smear” of Obama based on his attending a church guided by Black Liberation Theology — and claiming as his spiritual advisor and mentor a vocal proponent of BLT’s racialist, Marxist tenets (it is, after all, an extension of the personal as the political, with the “personal” in this case being religious belief) — he has brought on himself by way of associating himself with the church and, by necessary causal connection, its political movement.
If he truly believes the teachings of his church (like Reverend Wright presumably does), there is no “smear” involved: instead, what you are seeing is a description of alliances, a matrix of connections between the candidate and those with whom he has chosen to associate.
If Obama doesn’t believe the teachings of his own church and his own spiritual adviser, then it is perfectly fair to consider why he may have stayed with him — and the church — for those 20 years.
Possible motives: 1) he’s not deeply religious, and just went out of habit; 2) he was trying to establish some ethnic credibility with a certain faction of black voters; 3) he was curious about the things that animate the thinking of a constituency to whom he has always had rather tenuous ties (try as he might for “authenticity”) — in which case, one would think 20 years an inordinate amount of time to come to a decision about whether or not he accepts the premises; 4) he was doing it for his daddy (the irony of which I will let all the Bush haters luxuriate in); 5) or maybe he just really liked the energy, and was happy to go to please his wife, who seems perfectly willing to couch some of these ideas in more rhetorically friendly terms.
But the bottom line is, this man wants to be President of the United States. He has as his official blogger a socialist; and as a spiritual advisor a Marxist racialist who has defended, with conviction, the likes of Louis Farrakhan (who, however much he has done for young black men, he has done so by stoking racial animus, and by scapegoating other groups for the problems he sees in his “own”).
Providing that information to voters is not a “smear”; after all, people can decide for themselves whether such things matter.
But keeping that information from voters — attempting to bully into silence those who would highlight them by calling the tactic of introducing fact “McCarthyite” or “racist” — is itself a form of McCarthyism (as the left understands it), and should be brushed aside as so much rhetorical bullying masquerading as self-righteous uniteyness.
He and M’chelle gave them over $50,000 to spread anti-American lies and propaganda and then Baracky says he’s the only one that can fix America’s image. That’s really sick.
But Jeff – this deprives the left of its most effective strategy!
I’m proud to say I’m not voting for Rev. Jeremiah Wright for President.
My idea for a Barack Obama campaign slogan – He’s the grow-up pill PW needs!
I’ve widened my stance in preparation for the onslaught, pun intended. Bring it.
Baracky explained this already.
…except to say that shining more light on a subject doesn’t always illuminate it in a way that speaks to its essential truth.
Theaters have very bright lights on the stage, but those lights only illuminate what the director wants illuminated, and when, and to the right amount. Fauxillumination, as it were.
Oh. The “Baracky is a lot aware” part isn’t supposed to be in blockquotes. I must have screwed up the html when I pulled the link out cause the spam filter didn’t like it.
But you would vote for the apprentice rather than the master, thor. Good to know you can make such nuanced distinctions, the fate of the Empire is in your hands.
What’s to “bring,” thor? Clearly your IQ is much higher than others’ here. So rather than having a useless back and forth, why not just write out a syllabus and those of us who wish to take the grow up course can sign up?
That way, those who continue to think that the intellectual framework that likely undergirds the thinking of a potential president of the US is either important or, at least, worthy of being introduced into a debate over its relative importance, can do so; and those who think that dismissing the question as just so much right-wing sludge and waste meant to poison the hopey changey well can take your course in smug and self-satisfied dismissiveness, and in the end get their very own nuance ribbons.
Which they’ll wear either ironically or cynically, depending upon the situation. Kind of like a flag lapel pin.
r, put another way, attempts at damage control  simply by virtue of softening the subject or allowing him to back pedal, misdirect, and frame previous comments in ways he may not have initially intended them to be framed (in short, allowing him to repackage the message for a different audience, one he’s found is hostile to the original message as presented)  are not necessarily more “in-depth†simply by virtue of being longer and presented in an interview format. Else infomercials might come to count as news.
Heh. See, and now he can respond with “I’ve addressed that question in LENGTH.”
…no fewer than fifty-seven thousand blacks working in the Department of Health and Human Services!
[…] update: additional thoughts courtesy Jeff, here. Posted by Karl @ 7:00 am | Trackback Share […]
My idea for a Barack Obama campaign slogan – He’s the grow-up pill PW needs!
It ocurred to me that there has been no mention of Clinton’s mentors or advisors, or Edwards, or McCain or Thompson or Romney or Hucabees. Because they are all grownups, with real lives and records and accomplishments. It should be disturbing to more people that Obama is such a child politically that his mentors even are important. If he were truly a grownup, Ayers and Wright wouldn’t even be in the picture.
I have a feeling that this post is gonna lead to a long comment thread…
This is the Jeff G pw has been waiting for. Except that he might be overly generous to thor.
And the folks coming in from RCP are amusing, from the standpoint of admitting they don’t know the topic before asserting that they know what’s really going on here.
On “smears”… It looks like PBS’s retarded little sister wants to play too. NPR is foisting this today…
Actually though this is McCain’s pastor. Oh. NPR helpfully passes along Baracky’s plaint that “McCain’s use of ‘the politics of association’ undermines his credibility.”
B Moe,
Partially correct. But I’ve taken shots at some of McCain’s advisers already. One of his finance chairs also.
Sadly, McCain — ever the “high-minded” politician — will likely come out against the “politics of association,” and in so doing move “conservatism” one step closer to the poststructural imperative that all “knowledge” is contingent on its historical situatedness and the network of its contexts within a given power structure, and so therefore can be bracketed under certain circumstances. Like, for instance, making someone running for president uncomfortable.
The tyranny of facts. Facts as a hate crime. Observations as McCarthyism. Description as racism.
Jeff,
From the interview:
Moyers is either shallow, or (correctly) believes people like Jack are.
I was tempted to make a LOLMoyers: “I can haz hemreneutics?”
Those associations to quazi-marxists, full on socialists, black liberation ideologists just don’t matter to people like Jack Foster and others. They agreee. They don’t see a problem with those associations. So, that is what it is. Thor just wants some free healthcare.
What is interesting to me is that McCain was born in 1936. He isn’t a member of the greatest generation group, nor is he a boomer. He is in that forgotten generation group, the one my dad and mom (1930 and 1931 birthyears) are in. But I haven’t seen much analysis on what being in that birth cohort means. I know about my parents (obviously) but I haven’t seen any analysis placed on what being in that generation means.
Speaking of Ayres, I got into an argument with my girlfriend last night over this very topic, and one of her lines of defense was “if Ayers is such a criminal, why isn’t he in jail?”(along with the assertion that Rush and Hannity are racists for talking about Obamas associations, and their real problem is they just don’t want a black man as president)
So, why isn’t Ayers in jail? (I said I wasn’t sure, but I think he was the recipient of a presidential pardon)
That’s plausible. But I think that on this one, McCain simply wants to avoid anything with racial overtones like the plague. He’ll be playing the “Real Uniter” card once the Dem bloodletting is done, and he’s not gonna want the corners of it dogeared with this sort of thing.
That’s still a concession, Pablo. A pragmatic one, sure. But a concession nevertheless. And it matters from an ideological standpoint, however understandable it is from a purely political one.
Baracky knows just how to fake it
and he knows just how to scheme
he knows just when to face the truth
and then he knows just when to dream
and he knows just where to touch thor
and he knows just what to prove
he knows just when to pull thor closer
and he knows when to let thor loose…
IIRC, it was related to some police/prosecutorial buffoonery. He brags in his memoir that he is “Guilty as hell, free as a birdâ€â€it’s a great country.” I don’t believe he was pardoned.
Air Supply makes every day a holiday!
Pablo, Jeff G, both 100% correct.
Absolutely. I just don’t think Maverick is all that deep. He just wants the frame he wants, and this is a means toward that end.
I just wish they’d define “smear” once and for all, so that I knew what the fuck they meant by “smear.”
Lots of times, I think, it means “spoken about disfavorably.”
Jeff G said: “” will likely come out against the “politics of association,†and in so doing move “conservatism†one step closer to the poststructural imperative that all “knowledge†is contingent on its historical situatedness and the network of its contexts within a given power structure, and so therefore can be bracketed under certain circumstances.””
Jeff, I am embarassed to be so dense but would you be willing to give a further explanation to the (above) sentence?
Thanks Pablo. I seem to recall hearing the reason Hillary hasn’t brought it up is because she is stained by Ayers also, thus my guess about the pardon.
“I got into an argument with my girlfriend last night over this very topic, and one of her lines of defense was “if Ayers is such a criminal, why isn’t he in jail?â€Â
Your girlfriend should date O.J. You know, because he’s not in jail.
I agree with Pablo, Jeff. And you, really. It is a political pragmatic decision, and I thought when I first heard about the NCGOP ad that McCain was trying to immunize himself from the racism charge. It may or may not work, we will see, as always. Right now the Democrats are eviscerating themselves and I would – if I were a candidate – want nothing more than to keep them keeping on. I would not want to give them the slightest reason to pull out of that fight and attack me, especially as there are still six months to go.
There is a saying (attributable to whom I do not know) that goes ‘when your enemy is making a mistake, don’t interrupt him’. My take is Sen. McCain is staying above that, making conections, repairing connections, raising money and pledges, and acting as presidential as possible while he has the breathing room to do so. The Democrats will eventually come out of their fight, but until then you want their fight, their casualties, their expended resources, to be focused on each other, not you. Let you and him fight; I’ll be right over here, waiting.
lee,
Bill pardoned some other Weathermen. It’s hard to keep track, so see-dubya came up with a handy chart.
Our friend Jack seems to have lost his zeal for throwing rocks at lightning bolts.
The “high-minded politician” is as mythical as the hooker with a heart of gold.
More so, possibly.
I keep searchin’ for a heart of gold. High-minded pols? Not so much.
Lesley —
I discussed this previously during the Bill Bennett affair, where Bill Kristol and the White House both suggested that, while Bennett is no racist, he should have known better than to say what he meant in the way he said it for fear he would almost certainly be taken out of context.
That kind of concession — we must now be afraid of how our intentions are re-encoded and used against us to the point where we are stymied as to the kinds of things we can talk about publicly — is part and parcel of the progressive agenda on controlling the discourse. To give up the foundational assumption that intent governs meaning in intepretive situations is to surrender discourse to interested blocs who can do with your words whatever they wish, then attribute that reconfiguration of your meaning back to you.
It privileges not-disinterested interpretive communities over the “author”/”speaker.” So it’s in that context that I’m speaking of pragmatic concessions (Kristol and the White House would rather not put themselves in a position to have to defend their non-racist bona fides) overriding ideological belief (the fact that they are not, in fact, racists — and neither are their policies — and so shouldn’t feel the need to defend the charge under the rules set out by the left).
Similarly, McCain, I’m worried, will take Obama’s bait, and rule the “politics of association” as somehow out of bounds. But there is no “politics of association” at play here. There is merely the factual and descriptive presentation of actual associations for the purpose of fleshing out a politician who has been carefully managed and who hasn’t yet said much of anything.
If he does so, he will, in an effort to claim the high road, be suggesting that descriptions, factual associations, and the free release of information some voters may find truly relevant in a race that largely turns on character, are somehow no longer valid as a way of vetting candidates.
And once that happens, he is (unconsciously) acceding to the idea that fact, observation, description, etc., are “unfair” when presented under certain circumstances, and that it is perfectly acceptable to distance yourself from your own chosen alliances and associations simply by asserting that the mechanism for bringing them up (association) is invalid.
McCain either gets your vote of its an Obama nation. Squeeze play, is what they call it, I think.
In street ball it’s called the pause caused by a pick and roll.
of = or
@ # 32,
Ummm, well, I left before anything hurtful like that could be said.
I’ve found when it comes to l’amour, it’s best to pick your battles.
It can be a McCain nation or an Obama nation with or without my vote, frankly. Knowing this, I’m likely to let the process take it to the hoop while I stand back and take the charge.
Context?
I got your context right here!
http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/blog
Rev. Wright is despicable.
Karl, thanks, that helps alot.
A couple of things here. first, McCain hasn’t shitcanned the politics of association in general. He’s been attacking Ayers and Obama’s judgment in that association. Video here. He’s come out against the NC ad, but the politics of association doesn’t really apply there, because it’s using Wright and his connection to Obama to attack two NC pols that have endorsed Obama. It’s really playing Six Degrees Of Jeremiah Wright more than anything else, and by denouncing it, McCain’s now got a clip of himself on record being just the guy Obama claims he wants to be: He Who Rises Above Politics As Usual.
It’s a stupid ad, but I think that in his quiet place, McCain loves it. It plays right into the way he wants to position himself.
Rove may be behind this.
Thank you, Jeff. Now I understand what you meant in that sentence. It takes my breath away to observe how clearly and with what fluidity you flesh out your ideas for the laity.
“…â€Â… It looks like PBS’s retarded little sister wants to play too. NPR is….”
I’m sorry, but THAT is fuckin’ funny.
Bravo, hf.
Thoughtful essay. Thank you for accurately describing my position.
First off, I’d like for you to admit that there is a line, which McCarthy himself crossed. If somebody is in the mafia, and his only associates are mobsters, it’s fair to point the fact out. But when you cherry-pick a broad range of associations, friendships, and acquaintances, for the sake of smearing a candidate, and you simplify the task by caricaturing the associate, . . . well, it’s my opinion that that is a form of McCarthyism. You aren’t asking the candidate about his beliefs; you’re smearing him with his associations. “Are you, or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?” Is Barack Obama a racist? Or is he being subjected to Racial McCarthyism?
I agree that people should care about Black Liberation Theology and attempt to understand it. When I said that people don’t really care about it, I meant that they don’t care about it as much as they care about using it to smear Barack Obama! To me, that seems pretty clear, because Wright has been caricatured, and there has been little effort by the MSM to paint a complete picture. (Bill Moyers is the exception, allowing a one-dimensional portrait to start developing texture.)
TUCC is first and foremost a Christian church that preaches the love on one’s neighbor. It has a liberation theology slant, which focuses on social justice. Here’s what wikipedia says about liberation theology: “Liberation theology is a school of theology within Christianity, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church. Liberation theology focuses on Jesus Christ as not only the Redeemer but also the Liberator of the oppressed. It emphasizes the Christian mission to bring justice to the poor and oppressed, particularly through political activism.”
So that Barack Obama is a Christian, who embraces the Christian ethic of love for neighbors, who embraces the liberation theology ethic of bringing social justice to the poor and oppressed is not particularly controversial. Barack Obama is a liberal, and it is certainly fair to criticize or support him on that basis. But it’s not fair to do what people are doing regarding his church — to cherry pick potentially objectionable phrases out of context as if that’s all Reverend Wright is — and pour the cherry juice over Barack Obama!
It’s infinitely more important what Barack Obama himself believes about the world, and certainly smacks of McCarthyism to ignore that in favor of something else that is indirectly connected with Obama.
“Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/26 @ 1:27 pm #
I just wish they’d define “smear†once and for all, so that I knew what the fuck they meant by “smear.—
A “smear”, to a reactionary leftist, is telling the truth. C.F. ‘swiftboating’.
Jff at #38.
You are correct about self-censoring to avoid a charge. That is a bad thing, and should be challeneged, but to expect a politician to make that challenge while campaigning gor office – I don’t think that can be done. Politics does impact on culture. I think, though, that the politicians react to culture.
There has to be more of a focus on changing the culture, and then the politicians will join in. Due to the nature of the job, they won’t take the lead on something like that until they know there are people heading that way (I am their leader – which way did they go?). The concentration on Rev. Wright and Ayers are, to me, the beginnings of an assault on that kind of identity politics. It has to be sustained down here before it can be acknowledged up there. That is the nature of politics, those are the rules American politics always works on. Acknowledging those rules is not the same as liking them – if I may use an example, I may not like a co-worker, but I will work with him because that is what I have to do. My druthers are rarely indulged, in either politics, or with co-workers, but I work with what I have to get done what I can.
And I really apologize for the misspellings supra.
(Bill Moyers is the exception, allowing a one-dimensional portrait to start developing texture.)
You’re getting your dirty PBS hippies mixed up. Bill Moyers is the sniveling deceitful propagandist, it’s Bob Ross what does the texturing on the portraits.
You aren’t asking the candidate about his beliefs
Fair enough. I do believe I’ll have another waffle.
Jack Offster,
I don’t trust what Barack “has to say about what he believes,” or, at the very least, since two years ago he was a no account Illinois State Senator, I’d like to verify what he says he believes against how the man lives his life and with whom he associates and feels comfortable. You know, what some people might call “context.”
TUCC is first and foremost a Christian church that preaches the love on one’s neighbor. It has a liberation theology slant, which focuses on social justice.
Karl, in particular, has discussed the fundamentally racist and Marxist nature of “Black Liberation Theology” at great length on this site, Jack.
I suggest you seek out his posts and read them before dismissing the posters and commenters here as a bunch of ignorant yahoos.
By the way, care to define “social justice” for us?
who embraces the liberation theology ethic of bringing social justice to the poor and oppressed is not particularly controversial… unless they live in Iraq in which case Baracky thinks maybe a little genocide’ll do ’em good.
This is just silly. Even mobsters associate with people other than those in the Mafia so, by your thinking, one cannot accuse them of pro-cosa-nostra sympathies because they might also have non-Mafia associations. Let’s remember, Jack, that when offered to reject Wright and his fulminating nonsense, Obama embraced him while giving lip service to certain (unmentioned) disagreements with his crazy uncle’s views.
And BLT is not the same thing as liberation theology.
im with Dr. K.
he said McCain should not have made a big deal about repudiating the GOP ad on wright.
wright is fair game, especially since he is ego-manical enough to resurface at this time.
I think O is gonna have to utterly repudiate him.
strictly tactical tho.
but Dr. K said McCain bringing up the Hamas endorsement was ill-formed.
btw, Dr. K thinks McCain is an idiot…largely like Jeff does.
he has barely concealed disdain for him.
;)
Ayers got off on “prosecutorial misconduct” the specifics of which are buried too deep. His wife pleaded guilty to lesser shit, probably for same reason.
Jack,
What was the context of “God damn America?” How has it been taken out of that context?
Please understand the entire sermon has been posted online now, and many will find the same context throughout the entire sermon that they found when watching the Rev. damn America. I’d be interested to know what you see when you watch the Rev. in context ordering America to be damned, not blessed, and what that context means.
After 20 years of clapping along and shouting amen? Good luck with that.
Actually, I’m not asking if he’s a member of anything. He clearly is a member of TUCC. That church is built on Cone’s BLT, a racial and Marxist hermeneutic inversion of traditional Christianity.
Catholic pols get asked about how particular church doctrine affects their politics all the time. It’s not McCarthyism.
Sorry, but this is a self-serving and circular argument. To wit, those introducing Ayers and Wright into the conversation don’t think these are “cherrypicked,” particularly in light of what we’ve heard of Michelle Obama’s views. Couple that with having a socialist as an official blogger, that his campaign headquarters have, at times, been peopled by those who put up Che posters, that Ayers was helpful in launching his political career, and that Obama himself has labeled Wright his spiritual mentor…well, let’s just say that complaints about “not connecting the dots” can go both ways…
If you’re playing the home game, Baracky’s presidential qualifications are: he’s articulate, bright, clean, nice-looking, present (numerous times) and also he doesn’t belong to a hatey anti-American church. Not really. From a holistic perspective anyway. Sort of.
At Jack foster #48
“It’s infinitely more important what Barack Obama himself believes about the world…”
How exactly do we get at that information?
Others have mentioned this before, but it is essential to the reason why Obama’s associations matter more than previous presidential candidates. He is, historically, one of the least politically experienced candidates with a remarkably short public record, and a meteoric rise to prominence. What record there is indicates a radical bent, but he campaigns as a unitey hopifying changemeister. With little to go on but his intentionally hazy promises of hope and change and his single term in the senate, we, the folks whose job it is to choose a chief executive, begin checking references.
And when the references come back as radicals, it puts a giant warning light on the applicant, no? Reverend Wright is merely one of the many radicals around Obama who, taken in aggregate, begin to form a recognizable pattern from which we can make judgements on the real positions and goals of Obama.
Had he served 3 terms in the senate with a moderate voting record, these associations would mean jack. As it is we are being asked to judge a politician on what he says, and if he says it poorly to look at those who surround him, and if those who surround him put him in a bad light to just ignore it all anyway because it’s all a distraction and shouldn’t we be getting back to the real issues?
Jack–your characterization of Obama’s associations as “cherrypicking” is laughable. He is widely recognized as the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate. In a body that includes Russ Feingold and Bernie Sanders, that’s a tough ring to grasp. Pretending that his ideology doesn’t show via his associations is a vapid argument.
As for Ayers…turn the table and let’s say McCain had been chummy with Eric Rudolph or James Earl Ray. No, not just endorsed, as Hagee did McCain, but admitted “friends.” Troubled yet?
And then there is Rev. Wright. Using someone’s words is not a caricature. It is not a smear. “Context” cannot explain the abject vileness at the heart of some of Wright’s messages. Wright teaches a clear delineation between “White” America and “Black” America. I was under the misataken impression that the initial objective of the Civil Rights movement was to eliminate such lines. Compare and contrast “I have a dream” with “God Damn America.”
The sad reality is that the left in general believes ALL the bad about America. For someone who has been to the truly screwed up, destitute, authoritarian and/or racist places in the world, believe me–we are closer to the ideal than anyone. By light years.
The Obamas, Ayers and Wrights of the world have always said despicable things about their country. It’s only when the lights are on that they attempt to use the internet memory hole or seek the help of Bill Moyers to soften the message.
Enough. If I want a leader that thinks we’re fucked up to the point that we need taxes for “fairness” and dialog with apocalypse-seeking terrorists, I’ll stab my finger into a map of Europe and emigrate.
Good luck with that.
ah, Jeffersonian, how completely you misunderstand the left-side of the Bell Curve. ;)
The Obamas don’t really hang out with a very respectable class of people is what this adds up to. Terrorists and race-baiters and Marxists mostly. Didn’t they meet any nice people at Harvard? I mean a lot of what you pay for there is the networking opportunities I thought.
ah, Jeffersonian, how completely you misunderstand the left-side of the Bell Curve.
Poseur.
Fraud.
Liar.
i think the rightside is blowing thru all their general election ammo in a vain attempt to get HRC the nom.
you should really keep something back.
/sideways smile
SBP, please think of new epithets.
you are so boring.
;)
Comment by nishizonoshinji on 4/26 @ 2:58 pm #
Do you speak English?
Exactly. We’ll need something for when Baracky starts talking about his policies.
i think the rightside is blowing thru all their general election ammo
I think you’re a lying, illiterate, intellectual fraud with the emotional development of a narcissistic two year old.
SBP, please think of new epithets.
nishi, please stop being a lying poseur.
Hey now. “wright is fair game, especially since he is ego-maniacal enough to resurface at this time” is what nishi said, and Wright’s ego is a lot the Gollum in our little tale. He’ll have his part to play before the end, for good or ill I cannot say or whatever.
Foster:
When your premise is that your opponents’ motives are not only not what they say they are but deliberately so, then you may find that people are less than interested in engaging you in a discussion.
I mean, when you start with “You’re a scheming liar; let’s discuss!,” it’s easy not to bite.
As to Nishi – no, she does not speak English. Also, she excuses terrorism as “youthful indiscretion,” and is generally a lousy troll.
I know there are some people who think Nishi has some sort of untapped potential to actually be a human being, but I’m dubious.
that was only marginally better SBP.
cant you please be a little more creative?
Hey. That guy at Pajamas Mr. Reynolds links makes a good point. It’s kind of interesting that none of these Baracky apologists ever refer to his hopus opus 21st century Gettysburg Address race speech when making their points in his defense. Maybe the My Typical White Grandma Was a Bigot speech wasn’t so brilliant really after all.
So we are all clear, it is cherry picking associations to look at Obamas relationship to his spiritual advisor and mentor. When you quote Wright, it is taking him out of context, but they will never explain the actual context, because like Jack Mehoff, they have never read what they are defending. Finally, if you note the troubling association between BLT, marxism, TUCC, Wright, and Baracky, you are engaging in Racial McCarthyism.
That post a few months ago about the Baracky rules does not seem so funny now.
Racists
hehe, that was wunnerful feets
you’re on top of your game today, that’s for sure.
the basic problem is, to ppl like me, wright, che, ayers…pretty much irrelelvent. ;)
to the core dem constituency, their thirst for the WH is overwhelming.
they’d elect satan himself if he could deliver the whitehouse.
so they don’t care about wright.
so while your arguments are exquisite, elegant and perfectly formed, Jeffie, the onliest people they reach are these echochamber ppl here.
an they don’t need to be persuaded.
– Fuck the Left. They will try their usual narrative back flips and goal post moving contests because its all they’ve got.
– Obama will be questioned and exposed, no matter the double talk and spin, and theres nothing the Lefturds can do to avoid it.
– So who cares. It will happen. Sometimes the Lefts wishful thinking is breath takingly immature. Nobody is going to vote for someone without some idea of what he/she is all about.
– Nobody except maybe hopelessly indoctrinated ideologs who only want desperately out of the politically impotent wilderness.
core dems
ppl like her
echo-chamber here
nishi’s never heard of all those bitter small town folk
I can’t see 95% of my house’s foundation. That doesn’t mean it’s not important.
that was only marginally better SBP
You seem to think I’m interested in having an actual conversation with you.
Hint: I’m not.
Poseur.
Fraud.
Liar.
Yo, ‘zono.
Pass the syrup.
Dingleberry, please.
nishi’s never heard of all those bitter small town folk
oh i heard.
i wrote to jeffie about it.
up to him to share if he likes.
I think wright, che, ayers are flavoring the will-to-power soup a lot. Baracky’s nebulous hope and change are not nearly as nebulous as he’d like them to be anymore. Even people not in the echochamber know that putting Baracky in the White House to where he commands U.S. military forces would validate the good Reverend Wright a lot. Remember that whole “No no no. God damn America” thing they kept playing during the campaign? Hah. You’re not gonna believe this but at the time I really thought that was gonna kill us.
No way.
Yeah, for real. I was like kind of nervous if people would vote for Baracky when they heard that but hey here we are.
– Heres how the Left does things:
“….Did anyone hear something about Obama having something in his past about child molesting?….I can’t seem to remember where I saw it….”
Just out of idle curiosity, what is Obamas explanation for not wearing a flag lapel pin? I’ve heard it commented on, but never his reason for it. I’m just assuming it’s something more politic than “because America is a racist, mean, country”…
There is an old saying; “You are known by the company you keep”. Or put another way, “If you lie down with dogs, don’t be surprised if you get up with fleas”.
The problem that BarryO and his lefwingnut supporters like Jack don’t seem to understand this concept. Or more likely, they understand it just fine, but as is so often the case with proggies, the rules don’t apply to them, especially when it’s “inconvenient”.
I have to laugh every time I hear this “Wright’s (or whomever, as long as he/she/it are lefties) statements were taken out of context”. No, they were not. To anyone with more than two brain cells to rub together, it’s blatantly clear just what Wright is. That Obama would associate himself with this person, let alone Ayers or the rest of his Marxist hanger-on, speaks volumes about his worldview and judgment.
tout meme
im not voting for Wright for president.
Im votin for O.
Just out of idle curiosity, what is Obamas explanation for not wearing a flag lapel pin?
It is to bait the racist, fascist, homophobes like you who think he has to wear one to be patriotic.
and……how many times do i have to tell you?
this is wat they look at.
they are strictly poll-driven.
it isnt like they read blogs or anything.
u know…PW is a swarm intelligence.
dKos is a hivemind.
they are quite a lot different i thinks.
Nishi, but that graph a lot assumes that Barackyness fits some kind of normal distribution. It doesn’t. It’s a hive organism what nests in high-unemployment cities and college towns with NPR affiliates.
ok that was weird
It’s sad, really. Nish thinks people are talking to her, when they’re actually talking about her.
It’s a common error, familiar to middle-school students everywhere. Well, the socially apt ones, anyway.
but that graph a lot assumes that Barackyness fits some kind of normal distribution. It doesn’t. It’s a hive organism what nests in high-unemployment cities and college towns with NPR affiliates.
hehe, you’d think that, but u’d be wrong.
it is an average.
smoothes outliers and sample bias.
rawr!
But all I mean is the Electoral College doesn’t care how smooth your distribution or your messiah are. You have to win the actual states.
I mean, when are Democrats not leading in the polls on election day? It never happens really.
this is wat they look at…
they are strictly poll-driven.
it isnt like they read blogs or anything.
So people form their opinions by looking at polls of what their opinions are?
yup
B Moe they just want to win
they don’t really care about opinion.
Okay, I see now, they are strictly poll-driven, but they don’t really care about opinions. It must be a bitch being a genius sometimes.
desperate, but not serious I think
ppl like me, we’re believers, obamotaku.
che, ayers, wright…..not relevent to us.
che is a cool guy onna t-shirt, ayers is a refugee from an old dylan song and an old hippy, and wright is some crazy preacherman. we don’t care if O went to his church for 40 years!
we are too young for it to matter.
an we mostly dont go to church.
the netroots, and the party apparatchiks, they just see O as their best chance to get the WH back.
so they dont care wat O belives.
Actually, Nishi may have a point. It’s likely that, as with he last couple of elections, this election will be won by one or the other party by around a 50.2% to 49.8% result, no matter who the dem candidate, or their baggage, turns out to be.
We mostly don’t go to church and your voting record ain’t really stellar either. What might could help is if they let Baracky people vote through their Wii.
Che was a mass murderer.
Ayers is a murderer.
Wright is a Marxist bigot.
And you are a lying, illiterate poseur.
Hope that clears things up.
And people like me, we’re rational. You are not relevant to us.
ppl like me, we’re believers, obamotaku.
che, ayers, wright…..not relevent to us.
che is a cool guy onna t-shirt, ayers is a refugee from an old dylan song and an old hippy, and wright is some crazy preacherman. we don’t care if O went to his church for 40 years!
we are too young for it to matter.
You are ignorant. I understand that, and it depresses the hell out of me that our leaders are chosen by ignorant people.
Don’t be so depressed, B Moe. By and large, they don’t actually vote, they just emote. Because the feelings are what’s important.
It’s not just ignorance, that’s a too-generous interpretation.
I have been thinking lately about a Taxpayers Bill of Rights movement:
NO REPRESENTATION WITHOUT TAXATION!
Or something like that. Maybe Burge/Goldstein could run with it.
oh just stop it already
oh. his head and the basketball are like one of those separated at birth? thingers. that’s really really weird.
ppl like me
and
the netroots, and the party apparatchiks
don’t mean a hill of beans, electorally. See the recent results in PA, for example. See CT for real election.
… sorry, nishi’s threadjack worked again. Dammit.
Jeff, can you access my e-mail?
I will tell you how offensively crappish is the comparing of the liberalism to the fascism. Especially for the guy who lost half of his family fighting fucking Nazis .
– sashal, if it makes you feel any better, personally, although they do the best they can to emulate their cult gods, people like Marx and Hitler in spirit, they’re simply young Turks that are filled with youthful rebellion, angry they haven’t grown up yet, or lived long enough to have a thimbles worth of real wor;d experience, and are simply ego and glandular driven to be instant experts at everything. So even in trying to be agents of totalitarianism, they are as morons, and do a very transparent, poorly job, of even that.
– Does that help?
– And just as an aside. I have over 140 relatives sleeping in the ashes of the Killing pits of the Austrian puke, Mr. hairlip Mustache.
Sashal, you might consider this
Sashal – You are truly unique in all the world, a snowflake. No one has had to endure the burdens you have had to endure. The Democratic Party is for people like you who are victims. There is a negligible chance they will help you after they pick your pocket.
Vote Obama.
And I think it’s pretty offensively crappish to try to use an appeal to personal offense to try to forestall debate, especially in this context, but maybe I’m old-fashioned.
#112
hahahaha
2001-2002?
….any college students in that poll?
leftside-of-the-bell-curve.
highly educated and ppl under 30 will vote for Obama
Hunter, I hear you, similar here.
But while fighting fascists, who were basically racists superiority team,- what chances russians or jewish or others had to survive if they lost ?–Extermination.
Now, if you a are a good boy and subscribe to the Marxists class warfare theory, what are your chances to survive?-Much higher
in 2008, SBP
even your statistics are old.
hahahahaha!
Merovign – I see tears running down my monitor from sashal’s comments on my screen. Totally unfair and douchy. I agree.
jdm, one reason HRC wont be the nom is that ppl like u and rush an allahpundit keep trying to push her on us.
we taste your fear and it is delicious.
even your statistics are old.
Poseur.
Fraud.
Liar.
That’s your quota for today, “hunny”.
Sashal —
The comparisons might be offensive to you, but the fact remains that, ideologically, fascists and progressives share many of the same ruling imperatives and ideas for social organization. The fact also so remains that those who call themselves “liberals” today are often times “progressives” or populists, and as such are not of a piece with the classical liberalism that this country was developed around.
That Hitler added genocide to the mix is what gave fascism a bad name — and suddenly, those who had at one time spoke glowingly of it distanced themselves from the movement and helped sell it as “right wing”.
If you aren’t going to read the book, don’t talk to me about it. Goldberg goes out of his way to say, over and over again, that he is not comparing liberals to Nazis. He is tracing an ideological thread. If you disagree with his arguments, argue those; emotional appeals, coupled with little evidence that you’ve read or understand the actual argument, are not the kinds of things that make me particularly eager to engage you.
It pisses me off that nishitiot’s vote cancels out the vote of some sentient being.
Sashal – German fascism included racism in its tenets – Italian and Spanish fascism did not. The word “racist” has been linked to “fascist” by the left – who were bending over backwards to support fascism until WWII.
The link between “liberalism” and fascism was made by liberals – why have been trying to pretend It Just Wasn’t So ever since. Instead, they’ve lashed their wagon to the Red Star of communism – whose toll in blood, death and tears is even higher. Does that seem right to you?
The word “liberalism” itself is a hijack anyway, stolen from the enlightenment reformers by the far left, whose goal has always been more power and control vested in a few – the opposite of liberalization.
nope, just to fascists. Libruul Fascism, don’t u see?
;)
sashal, don’t listen to Jeffie..it is IQ-baiting, pure and simple.
If you believe in ToE(theory of evolution) and ToR(theory of relativity) then you must be a fascist, a nazi or a communist.
Damn. When you get sniped by the host, you can’t even complain about it.
Oops. :)
And Nishi: Diagnostic half Gregory temper fox ember simple? Water quick look pipe vendor. Jape cook number bank xylophone umber oil kite yellow.
It pisses me off that nishitiot’s vote cancels out the vote of some sentient being.
Actually, people like her don’t usually vote at all, in my experience.
And for those who won’t read the links or the books, the title “Liberal Fascism” is a quote from liberal H.G. Wells, who was, in fact, advocating fascism imposing liberal ideals on society.
Ya did it to yourselves, lefties, and you’re mad that it’s been pointed out, which is TOTALLY in character, by the way.
SBP, that wud be “hunnie” to u.
hahaha
Michael Hirsch
any college students in that poll?
leftside-of-the-bell-curve.
highly educated and ppl under 30 will vote for Obama
That doesn’t say much for higher education.
people like her don’t usually vote at all, in my experience.
except for this year
this year we are all voting……for Obama
hahah
more Hirsch
The IQ gap is religion vs. secularization.
it is pretty much red/blue.
nuff fun for tonite.
Lo-Do is calling me.
buh-bye
No, Meorivign, there were no liberal ideas advocated/imposed
on societies-just another authoritarian/socialists crap. Get your slight knowledge straight .O’K buddy?.
Goldberg is full of crap and BS.
nishi, I know what are they trying to pull here, comparing authorotarian social economical structure to the racist arian dominant system…
The IQ gap is religion vs. secularization.
it is pretty much red/blue.
Bullshit.
Let’s talk about the “IQ” of all those Dems in the inner-city. How about all those union Dem voters?
Honestly, it makes me wanna puke in my mouth to talk about IQ. And not because mine is low, which it is not- it’s actually rather respectable. But, people with lower IQ than mine know a hell of a lot more than me so I know the number doesn’t mean shit.
I know plenty of people with (much) less education and a higher IQ than me that could whip me up and down the street. All that stuff you hold dear, nish, is bullshit.
we taste your fear and it is delicious
So, my fear is palpable enough to taste, but you’re the windbag who won’t allow for any gainsaying of your Obama. Your need to threadjack every post in which you fear that the wonderfulness of Obama might be tarnished even one iota reveals your pathetic inability to deal with actual differences of opinion. And your fear actually.
It’s also revealing that while happyfeet posts brilliant comments in a zen-like syntax, your attempts look like baby-talk. And mean as much.
– “….what chances russians or jewish or others had to survive if they lost ?–Extermination.
– sashel. It has been said there are worse things than extermination. Some very good loving people payed the ultimate price to prove that to people that think they can talk their way out of the bullet in the head, or the slice of the scimitar. Don’t believe it.
– The true despot knows who his enemies are, and lines the elites up first against the wall. Giving yourself over to be fodder for the Fascists cannon is not the best way to acquit yourself for breathing the air.
It emphasizes the Christian mission to bring justice to the poor and oppressed, particularly through political activism”
Ok, Jack, I’m gonna need a Biblical quote here. Jesus didn’t give a flying fuck about the political in his short life. He was anything but a political activist. Anything. Please give me a quote. He was, with all due respect to Depeche Mode, a personal Jesus.
This makes no sense. None. Or most of the readers here would be fascisti, nazis, or communists.
This I can’t even decipher.
Do you understand, sashal, that the word “liberal” has been hijacked by progressives, who are anti-liberal? That calling fascists “right wingers” was a battle on the continuum of leftism? And that the contemporaneous progressives admired the political ideas of the fascists? — right down to the militarism?
Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism essentially points out that many today who self-identify as liberals aren’t liberal, and that progressivism and fascism share an ideological affinity that those who purport to support true liberalism should run screaming from.
Don’t like it? Too bad. But simply repeating over and over again that “Goldberg is full of crap and BS” is not an argument that refutes the books rather substantially more fleshed out counter.
Taki tells sashal it does though, Jeff. That’s all it takes.
I believe in mass production. Hey did you know all the different candy bars made by Mars have their own signature chocolate squiggle? That’s so fascist. And tasty.
sashal has now officially demonstrated “invincible ignorance.” You provide an example, and instead of responding, sashal denies it exists.
Yeah, that’s right, sashal. Stand in front of history, wave your arms and shout “it never happened!”
That always works.
(adds sashal to the list with Nishi and cynn… oh, look, alphie, I remember him!)
Jeff,
Even before the stupid Jonah was born(exaggeration, I am not that old) I was telling to my friends about
certain commonalities between the authoritarian- totalitarian- and whatever philosophies.
Just because the similarities exist, that does not make
socialism and
fascism the same.
Why do you think my ancestors fought Germans? they did not love socialism( my uncle certainly did not) but they thought of the bigger evil.
Jeff, I really , really not trying to justify frigging
commies, I hope you know this( I hate them as much or as more as
McCarthy did )
I see that you’re trying to divert anything to economical issues, and looks like Italian fascism may work that way.
But in reality not.
Racism and nationalism are inherent features
of any fascism
Barack is über-big on national service. Everyone will get to change lightbulbs for the motherland. Maybe mandatory squiggly bulbs are inherent features of any fascism too, but the earth ain’t getting any cooler you know.
btw, here is good repudiation of Jonah’s stuidity:
http://www.mises.org/misesreview_detail.aspx?control=326
“If you believe in ToE(theory of evolution) and ToR(theory of relativity) then you must be a fascist, a nazi or a communist.”
AND you are, by implication, an atheist.
the ppl here are largely theocons, as near as i can tell.
why do you suppose you are held insuch detestation by the leftside Jeffie?
you are a traiter….a true academic on the rightside blogverse.
anathema!
goldberg is IQ-baiting
it is a slap against academe and science, is all.
really, i gtg.
have a swell time.
wait…..did u miss this Jeffie?
How irresistable, how infinitely seductive is this meme?
You are just as smart as those snobby scientists….you are smart where it really matters!
God-smart!
there u go.
;)
yet someone boasts high IQ and conversion to islam
lulz :^P
Read the book, sashal, and then make your argument. Nationalism was certainly a feature for organizing fascism as a ruling paradigm — a means to a systemic end. Racism, not necessarily. Mussolini didn’t turn to racism until 1938 or thereabouts, yet fascism was fascism long before that. However, racism certainly worked well as a method for scapegoating and Othering, and for stoking national pride. Again, a means to an end.
LOOK FOR THE UNION LABEL!
– “….Racism and nationalism are inherent features
of any fascism”
– And inherent features of Marxist Socialism as well sashel. Its just cleverly disguised, and introduced later in the game. It may be tiresome for you to hear, over and over, but Adolphs glorious Reich started as simple Socialism…..proceeded to National Socialism, and finally morphed into full up Facism.
– Thats how it works because the goal of all of the Totalitarian programs in the long run, is absolute, amoral, infallible power, and they use whatever you’re willing to give them to work with, most effectively your own arrogant elitism, as the perfect weapon against you.
– Post modern Secular Progressivism is the same old wolf in sheeps clothes.
Obama knows, as Haki Madhubuti wrote,
Black people in america
may not be made for the truth
we wrap our lives in disco
and sunday sermons
while
selling false dreams to our children.
lies
are refundable,
can be bought on our revolving
charge cards as
we all catch truth
on the next go round
if
it doesn’t hurt.
Sashal, I recommend that you also read Eric Hoffer’s “The True Believer”, particularly the part about ardent socialists and communists changing to equally devout Nazis almost overnight.
The critical factor lies in surrendering your conscience and reason to The Movement. The label The Movement happens to wear doesn’t matter all that much.
Nishi, you’ve parlayed away whatever dubious grasp you had of the scientific method (which is based on impartial observation, data collection, and appropriately adjusting what are forever impermanent hypotheses) by becoming inflexible, stubborn, and pigheaded. By refusing to open your [closed] mind to new ideas and stimuli, you become most like that which you scorn…twodigit leftcurves. Intelligence doesn’t roost for very long in a closed mind.
Nishi should also read The True Believer.
But she won’t.
Jeff, I hope I can say it here without being ridiculed, but the similarities between fascism and socialism(note:I do not use the word liberalism here) are too obvious, I was trying to put up the essay on this theme back in the major newspaper in the old country in the time of perestroika( to no avail, of course).
Again, to me and in reality to many – fascism , besides being totalitarian ideology -is a nationalist/racist BS. And that is the major difference between the two, IMHO.
What, is the new meme on the left “victory through inscrutability?”
Or is it just the end game of the “anti-judgement” meme to become literally thoughtless?
My older brother used to work on The Hill, as dork-bots call it. He worked for Lee Hamilton. Two guys who still call my brother to shoot the shit are Barney Frank and Dick Armey, besides Hamilton. Remember when Armey called Barney Frank “Barney Fag”? The reason for that was Barney Frank and Dick Armey used to roast each other in the steam room, literally and figuratively. When they went back and forth it was unbelievably funny, as my brother tells it. Armey so often called Barney Frank Barney-fag that it reflexively rolled off his tongue with the microphones on.
Truth is both Frank and Armey like each other, a lot, but it’s in that weird sort’a guy-bond way that occurs when each of the two thinks the other is funnier-than-shit.
That’s the problem you have with Obama. He’s the dude that you point at when you’re picking teams in a pick-up game of street ball and say, “Gimme Professor Ears.” He’s a cool dude, as dudes go. No matter how much you disagree with him politically, you’d pick him to be on your team, you’d call him on poker night, you’d email him bad jokes, you’d defend him from detractors for no other reason than he can hang. So, if you want to go inter-textual explication on him, don’t expect me to stop liking the shit out of him. He can hang.
It emphasizes the Christian mission to bring justice to the poor and oppressed, particularly through political activismâ€Â
Ok, Jack, I’m gonna need a Biblical quote here.
Someone get Nancy Pelosi on the line S.T.A.T.
He’s the dude that you point at when you’re picking teams in a pick-up game of street ball and say, “Gimme Professor Ears.â€Â
Sure. You do that the first time, because he’s tall, he’s the only black guy in the gym, and he’s said repeatedly that he’s the best player in the world. Then the first time down the floor he does a crossover between his legs, off his foot, and off the wall. Okay – happens to everyone. Next time down, he launches a 3 before anyone else has a chance to set up for the box-out. Boyeeeeng! Off the iron. Next possession, he’s being triple teamed, and he bricks a turnaround fade-away from 15, you know, the kind where he kicks his feet up behind his but on the shot – Vinnie Microwave Johnson-style. That’s old-school, beehotchy.
“Time………..What the fuck dude?!? You got four other players on this team. What is that shit?”
“I.am.clearly.the.one.who.looks.like.the.best.baller.here……….therefore.I.must.be.”
“Give me that ball doosh.”
If I was picking a street ball team, I’d definitely consider Obama. But he wants me to pick him for the job of President of the United States, which is kinda different.
you’d pick him to be on your team
Not my bowling team, I wouldn’t.
“Comment by nishizonoshinji on 4/26 @ 4:25 pm #
ppl like me, we’re believers, obamotaku.
che, ayers, wright…..not relevent to us.
che is a cool guy onna t-shirt, ayers is a refugee from an old dylan song and an old hippy, and wright is some crazy preacherman. we don’t care if O went to his church for 40 years!
we are too young for it to matter.
an we mostly dont go to church.”
Mheh.
nishi just admitted she’s an ignorant punk.
“Comment by sashal on 4/26 @ 7:01 pm #
Hunter, I hear you, similar here.
But while fighting fascists, who were basically racists superiority team,- what chances russians or jewish or others had to survive if they lost ?–Extermination.
Now, if you a are a good boy and subscribe to the Marxists class warfare theory, what are your chances to survive?-Much higher”
My goodness, the depths of your historical ignorarance is…..astounding.
Here’s how I express it: the margin of error in estimating the number of human beings murdered under communism is larger that the entire Nazi holocaust.
Reactionary leftists, communists and nazis alike are mass murdereres.
So, no, your chances of survival weren’t “much higher” under communism, they were much lower.
carin, cut the crap.
It is utter bullshit to pretend there isnt a thinker/beliver gap. You guyz do it alla time, “leftist acadame”, eggheads, etc. At my blog we were talkin about how british and aussie societies are becoming increasingly secularized, an how America is the ONLY country where you dont see high negative correlation between percentbelievers in pop and mean pop IQ.
Dare (aussie) said this…..
Two theories I have encountered in the past are:
perceptive, non?
also:
In relation to theory 1):
see, that is book i think Jeffie should write…the mirrorbook of liberal fascism. the libertarian book.
And yet you claim to be both, depending on what argument you’re trying to advance at a given time. You can’t even keep your own bullshit straight.
and.
if you look at 176, it is zactly bitter clinging to guns and religion, isn’t it?
thinkers vs believers.
Karl, ima Sufi.
I tole u before.
one reason is that i am also a transhumanist and Sufism and transhumanism are inherently compatible.
as opposed to say, the intellectual scold’s bridle of the catholic church which i escaped long ago.
it was an informed choice on my part.
pablo, certain ly you can be both.
Dr. Francis Collins is. Dr. Pournelle is.
/astonishment
most ppl aren’t, and politicians and IQ-baiter exploit the gap for identity politics and political gain.
IQ is just like race in a lot of ways.
btw read Dr. Pournelle on the 40% and Fareed’s article…i thot it was awesome.
1) That the absence of a strong welfare-state is the problem. Economic insecurity makes people more dependent on superstition to cope with the stress of economic and health uncertainties. Europeans say, have big government so they have less need to turn to imaginary gods for support.
Crap. Millions of independent people are religious. The only point here, which is not being made intentionally, is Government as God. See, we can prove government, and then turn our lives over to it.
2) Gun culture makes it necessary to have strong social controls to contain criminality. Conservative religion fulfils this need. Other modern nations simply ban guns, and use the power of the state to try to control individual criminality.
More crap. The only “gun culture” that has demonstrated excessive criminality is gangster culture, not known for it’s piousness. There is no correlation between typical gun owners and religiosity or crime.
another reason im not catholic any more is that my embrace of transhumanism, with it’s attendant “anathemas” of lifehacking and genetic engineering will send me straight to hell, according to Benedict the Bad Shepherd.
;)
I agree that people should care about Black Liberation Theology and attempt to understand it. When I said that people don’t really care about it, I meant that they don’t care about it as much as they care about using it to smear Barack Obama!
Wrong I care about it because I want to smear Wright and Cone for destroying the Black Community with this crap. The fact that it smears Obama as well is just a bonus.
“There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs-partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.”– Booker T Washington
Wright/Cone/Obama/Sharpton are not some new kind of hustlers. They are the same old.
“The era of the state church has been replaced by an age in which the state itself is the church. European progressives still don’t get this: they think the idea of a religion telling you how to live your life is primitive, but the government regulating every aspect of it is somehow advanced and enlightened.”
-Mark Steyn
European “progressives” and nishi.
Haters all.
“There is no correlation between typical gun owners and religiosity or crime.”
Isn’t there a negative correlation on the “crime” part?
Those who are ignorant of history are doomed to Recreate ’68.
Me? Love to see it in Denver.
pablo u are misreading.
dare’s point is that the strong religious controls make it unneccessary for the state to take our guns.
N. O. Brain that is exactly wat Dare is saying.
That a strong welfare state obviates need for religion.
that is why the brits are loosing their religion.
;)
Good point.
N. O’Brain wasn’t talking about either welfare or religion, but guns and crime (or lack thereof). Do try to keep up, genius.
“That a strong welfare state obviates need for religion.
that is why the brits are loosing their religion.”
Which is pretty disgusting, actually.
Obama/Lil pennyzono ’08.
See, this here is the sort’a give and take Dick and Barney must’a shared in the sweat box.
You’re fuckin’ slayin’ my ever-thoughtful parallel world homilies.
Chest bump and a stereo pimp tug. You got game, bro.
Wow. For someone with a high IQ, nishi/gamera/nishi’s reading comprehension could use a little work… or whatever lefty talking points she’s cribbing off of could use a little work. I’m “surprised” all the people complaining about “out of context” remarks WRT Wright haven’t spotted the massive mistake in her interpretation:
[quote]GOLDBERG: I do think Darwinism led to Nazism, in a sense. But that’s because I see Nazism as one of many responses to modernism. And Darwin, for good and ill, represents the rise of modern science  along with Einstein and others. Nazism and Communism and Progressivism were all impossible without the industrial revolution, Darwinism, relativism, mechanized warfare, mass production, etc. They were reactionary responses to these things. Those responses amounted to an express rejection of the conservative and libertarian vision of society, which is why they were leftwing.[/quote]
Of course the self-proclaimed three digit IQer didn’t comprehend the parts in bold. The part about Nazi philosophy being a reactionary response to Darwin, Einstein, etc is not saying that Darwin and Einstein were Nazis or fascists, or people that agree with the science of Darwin and Einstein were fascists. I, for one, do not understand how anyone could possibly read it that way, but Nishi’s brain is incomprehensible.
Perhaps I’m just pissed that she’s sullying the good name of us Otaku…
1) That the absence of a strong welfare-state is the problem. Economic insecurity makes people more dependent on superstition to cope with the stress of economic and health uncertainties. Europeans say, have big government so they have less need to turn to imaginary gods for support.
The bias in that theory is in the bolded word. Religion is a “problem”? I wasn’t religious and converted as an adult. It wasn’t economic uncertainty that drove me to God. It was having children.
2) Gun culture makes it necessary to have strong social controls to contain criminality. Conservative religion fulfils this need. Other modern nations simply ban guns, and use the power of the state to try to control individual criminality.
Honestly, I can’t even wrap my head around that one. So … a nice facist government would be preferable to a religious one?
I hope this thread is dead, killed by the insufferable bayings of nishi and thor.
Civilis: Nishi isn’t sullying the good name of the Otaku, she’s sullying the good name of semi-literate halfwits.
Just, you know, to be clear, and not so much “I really long to know what a haiku actually is, so I keep trying.”
See, this here is the sort’a give and take Dick and Barney must’a shared in the sweat box.
I call Dick!
bay bay bay bay bay suffer bay bay bay bay bay bay bay suffer bay bay bay bay bay
Feel My 200!
Yo, yo, yo, my shit is more hermeneutic than yours bitch. Furthermore, don’t sully my dialectic with your racialism. You hates the black man cuz you a JEW, and we all know Jews are responsible for the difficult conditions the black man has been facing.
thor,
get deloused
Insta-lanche!
Rev. Wright is no more than 30-40% black. He has more white ancestry than black.
That black leaders can become millionaires by playing the victim game in America is remarkable enough. That someone who is more white than black can do this without anyone even noticing his light skin color, is even more astounding.
Rev. Wright is no more than 30-40% black. He has more white ancestry than black.
That black leaders can become millionaires by playing the victim game in America is remarkable enough. That someone who is more white than black can do this without anyone even noticing his light skin color, is even more astounding.