Andrew Anthony, the erstwhile liberal whose book criticizing modern liberalism has forever condemned him to apostate status among the finer classes, nevertheless continues his broadside, undeterred. From the Guardian’s Comment is Free:
[…] a large section of liberalism [has] become contorted by a reluctance to entertain reality. And also that this reluctance very often [stems] from guilt or, closely related, a fear of raising doubts about certain orthodoxies.
You only had to look at the responses when some contributor [to Comment is Free] dared to question the liberal-left shibboleths (that America was evil, that multiculturalism created social cohesion, that crime was a simple function of poverty, and so on – you know the drill). Accusations of racism and fascism were instantly bandied about as though anyone who wanted to open up the debate was by definition a Nazi.
Of course, it’s an absurd tactic but also a surprisingly effective one. Among guilt-ridden liberals it often only takes one shrill voice of unreason to silence the expression of rational sense. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has seen this work, for example, in union meetings where otherwise sane people allow themselves to be morally directed by some fantasist whose single aim is to bring about a general strike and the downfall of capitalism.
It’s impossible to quantify how much dogma has been swallowed by guilty liberals down the years but I know I’ve silently consumed a hefty chunk myself. Better not question this or that received wisdom, it might seem right-wing. Thus some key liberal principles have slowly been subverted. Free speech, it turns out, comes at a cost than many liberals are unprepared to pay: witness the lame response to The Satanic Verses, Behzti and the Danish cartoons. Female equality, once a defining principle of liberalism, is now routinely discussed in terms of a cultural luxury. The issue of race appears to have become mired in anti-racist rhetoric and practice that often emphasises and maintains racial division. And gay rights are in danger of being filed under the heading of western decadence.
[my emphasis]
Whether or not “guilt” or “fear” are driving factors (as opposed to merely ancillary ones) in any of the subversions of key liberal principles Anthony cites is debatable. But what is not debatable is that modern “liberalism” (more properly, contemporary “progressivism”) — and, in particular, its academic boosters — is absolutely committed to defending its long-held positions, even if doing so forces proponents into the kinds of contortions we’ve seen so much of recently, from the insistence that color-blindness is actually racism, to the demonizing of such concepts as “merit” or “fairness” or “equality of opportunity” or “melting pot” as right-wing “code words” brandished to maintain the white patriarchal status quo (the irony being that the status quo these truly liberal ideas are purported to maintain is, in fact, not the status quo at all — that distinction having long ago been granted to those pushing for various manifestations of equality of outcome, and for a social order built around multicultural feel-goodism).
The “radical” has now become the familiar — but its dusty champions are so caught up in the ego gratification and anti-establishment thrill they get from self-identifying as “movement radicals” that are blind to how stale and entrenched they’ve become.
Or, if they recognize the failings of their utopian beliefs, they are quite adept at denying it — though it takes the worst kind of anti-intellectual rationalization to maintain such positions in the face of time’s march, which cares not for their supposed good intentions, but instead seems determined to judge these “progressive” throwbacks on the effectiveness of their advocacy.
To today’s “progressive”, the mold on their ideas looks like penicillin. To time, it looks only like the moss growing on an old slice of marble rye.
Which is why the consensus view of truth that underpins progressive ideological belief is so absolutely crucial: because all it takes to create “truth” is complicity; and if such can be made to take the place of any kind of agreed upon ground from which to engage in dispassionate criticism (in the past, Enlightenment empiricism and rationalism served us well), will alone becomes ascendant.
And will is really no more than ego projected onto the world by power, whether that power be rhetorical or something more obviously resembling totalitarianism.
(h/t Dan Collins)
And for more fun, go peruse the Free-Range Apoplexy in the Free Comments.
I would, but I have yoga to do.
So that I can get power glutes and be sexy.
Not that I care.
To borrow from Mandy …
Shorter PW – People like Marcotte and Caric are full of shite.
A commenter at my place regularly gets after me for conflating liberals with leftists. So I’ve resolved to try to humor him by making a distinction between the two. I’d appreciate it if someone would tell me what it is, anymore.
Re: Sanity Inspector
Wouldn’t this be a good time to trot out a Star Trek quote of some renown? “A distinction without a difference…”
Anyway. We’ve got a drone questioning the hive-mind! Panic!
Has anyone ever met one of these guilt-driven, orthodoxy-contorted liberals? I’ve read about them, seen them portrayed on tv, heard people rail against them and what they’re trying to do to the country, how they hate the troops and love abortions and all that, but I’ve never actually MET one. I know plenty of the caricatured “conservatives” who think Bush is a genius, hate gays, think intelligent design should be taught in school, drive huge SUVs with flag and ribbon magnets on them, read Ann Coulter books, assert that Sean Hannity is a great debater, pray for Terri Schiavo’s murdered soul, and all that, so I know they’re real, but the liberal bogeyman has never presented himself to me face to face.
I’ve been to New York City, I’ve been to Los Angeles, I spend a lot of time in DC, but in all my dealings, even with the anti-globalization protesters and the young Democrat people, I’ve never seen one of these vapid, frothing liberals that, to read the right-wing blogosphere, are ubiquitous enough to pose a clear and present danger to the Union. There were a couple drug-addled kids in college who came close to that cartoon, but never the actual, sober (not on LSD) Real Deal.
Do you guys know any? Or is your knowledge of their activities, proclivities, and perquisities, like mine, only second and third-hand?
Gabriel, I work with plenty of them. So, sorry to piss on your cornflakes like that.
Gabriel, I know frothers of both sort. Meat versions, and virtual.
Just saying.
Well, let’s see, Gabriel. I just these past few weeks got done “debating” a professor who calls conservatives a “cancer” and argues that color-blindness is racism, because he can really feel Martin Luther Jr’s pain coming through his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, so you might want to start there. Likewise, I’ve “debated” those who conflate support for gay marriage with respect for homosexuals — then run around talking about Matt Sanchez’ or jeff Gannon’s cocks.
Meantime, you can check out my series on “Random Sean Hannity Thoughts” by doing a site search — just as you can check out where I stand (and recall, I’m not just a “conservative,” I’m, like, THE GOLD STANDARD, according to many left-leaning blogs) on Schiavo, Intelligent Design (I think it should be taught, though not for the reasons those who cartoon conservatives believe), etc.
And of course, for the gay hate, you should simply do a Google search for “Fred Phelps.” Or hell, check out what blacks have to say on the subject.
Not Thomas Sowell, mind you. I’m talking about the good kind.
Fry,
I know plenty of them first hand. Moreover, go to ANY left-liberal web site and see them froth whenever anyone questions the liberal orthodoxy. Indeed, if we were to start a debate here on the merits of affirmative action right now, a ton of lefty trolls would show up and start calling us Nazi’s and Racists. If we debate the merits of same-sex marriage, we will immediately be called homophobes and bigots. The point is that the left does not engage in debate, b/c they would lose on most issues. Instead, they call names and try to shut down debate and anyone, including a bona-fide liberal, who dares to question any sacred liberal-left dogma, such as how great multiculturalism is, they are shouted down, called names, etc.
Or, re-read the post and try to understand. It’s interesting that you “know” a lot of conservatives that fit that bill, as I am as conservative as it gets and I don’t fit your idiotic generalization, and don’t know any other conservatives that do.
Notice, you came here right away and used the left’s favorite tactic, not addressing the actual point in contention, which is that the left refuses to honestly debate issues, instead relying on silencing dissenters by calling them racist, sexist, nazi, etc. While you did not do that exact tactic, you did not address the issue raised in the post and tried to change the topic. That should inform you of a lot about your belief system and how the left has taught you to “debate” issues.
Again I ask – if left-liberals truly believe they are correct on the merits, why will then never engage in honest, rational debate?
Gabriel: Those libs exist, but they’re all underground, passing their ideas around in samizdat form, for fear of being sent to the ChristoFascistTheoCon gulags springing up everywhere in Bush McChimpler’s AmeriKKKa. Why, it’s so awful, that the traffic into the gulag nearest me completely backs up traffic onto the expressway, during my morning commute.
I certainly know people who claim to be liberal and have completely subverted notions about free speech.
That’s hardly in doubt. They get quoted in newspapers and make the arguments quite openly that free speech doesn’t include anything offensive. They might not *say* “free speech is approved speech only” but do they have to? Abandoning women’s equality for multi-cultural sensibility isn’t covert either. It’s overt.
Sure, synova. But do you wear a flag lapel pin, or have a ribbon on your SUV?
I bet you do.
“…modern “liberalism†(more properly, contemporary “progressivismâ€Â)…
Please, Jeff, call them what they are: reactionary leftists.
:-P
I *want* an SUV. If I have to wear a lapel pin to get one, I will.
(I once had lapel pins with chevrons, but I don’t think that counts.)
@ Gabriel
Yes. I know a couple, have met many. I worked in Hollywood. Most were casual bigots (and drove huge SUVs), the sort that didn’t even recognize what they said was bigoted (because they were good and sincere).
You’ve met plenty of conservatives who pray for Terri Schiavo’s murdered soul? Like, you were walking down the street and some conservative drives up in his huge SUV with magnets and leaps at you, praying for Terri Schiavo’s murdered soul? Spooky, like cartoon anime-spooky, with their huge eyes bulging and their mouths opening and closing at random intervals.
I know many conservatives who disagreed with the decision, but seem to be getting on OK. However, I don’t know what they exactly prayed for, honestly.
Liberals is NPR. Their ideology is largely defined as being Anti-Republican.
Leftists is Pacifica Radio. Their ideology is unreconstructed Marxism.
You can hear them both online – I’m not being at all facetious. It’s a handy way of filtering the moonbats you read about online, seeing which of the two outlets they favor. For example, Robert Scheer = NPR, Chris Hedges = Pacifica.
Gabriel: Here’s an anecdote that might clear things up for you.
I did six years (B.A. and M.A.) at Brigham Young University, as conservative a college campus as you’ll ever see. Evolution is taught, and two semesters of Book of Mormon are mandatory. Also known as the most “Stone-Cold Sober” campus in the country, etc. You get what I mean.
Then I did 5 years at Cornell in pursuit of a PhD. One of my professors at Cornell had taught one semester at BYU. I told him while I was at Cornell that there were more forbidden thoughts or ideas at Cornell than at BYU. He begged to differ.
I later realized that our differing perceptions resulted from the fact that the “forbidden ideas” at BYU were ideas that I wasn’t particularly interested in, so I never felt “oppressed” by the disapproval of my peers. On the other hand, while I was at Cornell, those “forbidden ideas” were precisely the ones I was interested in. Reverse the ideological polarity and you get my professor’s experience.
If you are a lib and you hang around libs, they seem perfectly reasonable to you because you share most of their assumptions about reality. Their passions seem well-directed and you can easily forgive their excesses. On the other hand, if you’re a lib and you hang with cons, their passions and assumptions will affect you like fingernails on a chalkboard. Their passions will come across as “foaming,” and you will not be as forgiving of their excesses.
If you were to introduce me to these crazed conservatives that you have to endure, I’d probably find them to be quite reasonable. On the other hand, you might find my closed-minded, blinkered, trend-chasing, naked-emperor-worshiping, elitist colleagues at Cornell to be just your cup of tea.
It’s all relative, remember? At least, that’s what they insisted at Cornell.
While I can’t say I chatted with the guy at length, I did meet a fella once in Ohio who came pretty close to fitting the mold. He was my cousin’s friend’s dad and when he mentioned we were from Texas, he asked, “So, what do you think of this President of ours?” in a way that suggested I tread lightly.
We went inside, and lo, thereupon the kitchen table (in a very nice house, I might add), was an issue of The Progressive.
Well… I still consider myself a liberal. And Jeff too, for that matter. Shows what I know.
Gabriel,
I empathize. In real numbers, the true lefty loons are few. Think bell curve. The real nuts are a couple three standard deviations out–both right and left. Some of the left nuts, though, have a modicum of cultural respect, and that gives them power–think Chomsky.
Moreover, the liberal establishment–the NY Times, say–wittingly or not–tends to give the nuts a pass while promoting their agenda–e.g.,the slow permeation of political correctness that lead to some truly noxious speech codes on campuses across the country. The rot creeps up slowly.
The good news is that the vast middle (both left an right)know hooey when they see it. E.g., the ACLU got laughed out of town when they tried to force the city of Las Cruces, NM to remove the crosses from its city seal. Just think of what the loons might do to Santa Fe or San Francisco?
Vigilance is required. The nuts are so outrageous that we tend to dismiss them–Cindy Sheehan, Code Pink–despite the media hoopla. Till they come for you.
I find the nuts on the right equally absurd and dangerous. It’s just that their megaphone is smaller.
Jeff may be the Gold Standard winger bogeyman for the left nuts, but he’s the voice of sanity (and hypermasculinity) for us knuckledraggers.
Jeff, be sure to wear your leg warmers at yoga.
“I know plenty of the caricatured “conservatives†who think Bush is a genius, hate gays, think intelligent design should be taught in school, drive huge SUVs with flag and ribbon magnets on them, read Ann Coulter books, assert that Sean Hannity is a great debater, pray for Terri Schiavo’s murdered soul, and all that, so I know they’re real, but the liberal bogeyman has never presented himself to me face to face.”
I score on two of these. I think Bush has his own brand of genius and I’ve got the big SUV (but the ribbon magnet is on the company car – and it’s for donating blood) But it’s nice that you can pigeon-hole me as a caricatured conservative. It saves time. And after reading the above paragraph Gabe, I have you pegged as a douche nozzle. Favor returned.
Let’s not omit due reference to that recent, statisically-impeccable study by a couple of the finest-boned, tenured academics out there which concluded that compared to liberals, conservatives can’t handle ambiguity and complexity; and in consequence, are perceptually and morally defective. Sheeesh!
WHOA! Cool it, chums. Ask a simple question and you get buried in a pile of reactionary crazies. I hang out with conservatives, my family is largely conservative, the Board of Visitors at my alma mater was populated with NRA and Philip Morris alums, I ride in those be-magneted SUVs, and, wait for it… some of my best friends are conservatives. And if Jeff is the Gold Standard for right-wing crazies, I’m Sally Struthers. That’s ridiculous. He can form a sentence without relying on hilarious constructs like “culture of life.”
So ignoring the assaults on my character (cuz I’m such a big softie) I’d like to follow up with the question of whether these liberal bogeymen are perhaps, and don’t take this the wrong way, getting more publicity from their detractors than is entirely warranted? You know, having their impact magnified by the right-wing echo chamber, as it were. Because the stuff that Andrew Anthony is writing about sounds a lot like Inside Baseball, not cultural touchstones.
So ignoring the assaults on my character (cuz I’m such a big softie) I’d like to follow up with the question of whether these liberal bogeymen are perhaps, and don’t take this the wrong way, getting more publicity from their detractors than is entirely warranted? You know, having their impact magnified by the right-wing echo chamber, as it were. Because the stuff that Andrew Anthony is writing about sounds a lot like Inside Baseball, not cultural touchstones.
Again, go to any left wing web site and try to have a debate about the merits of affirmative action without being screamed down as a “hater”, racist, or nazi. then come back here and tell us if what we are arguing is only confined to an extremely small band of far left fringe.
That is the whole point. Even left-liberal academics feel free to avoid any and all debate by screaming “racist” at any person who dares utter a word against liberal orthodoxy. Just look at the climate change debate. Instead of debating the merits, the left calls anyone who does not believe a) that the problem is apocalyptic and/or b) that is man-made, and the names you are called are ridiculous. There is no rational debate b/c these things have become religious tenets to the left. Thus, being unwiling to have thier views challenged in any way, they immediately resort to calling anyone who dares offer a dissenting argument a racist; bigot; homophobe; nazi; sexist; or evil in some other way shape or manner.
Indeed, try posting a conservative comment on a liberal forum and see how long before the comment is deleted and/or you are banned. On these forums, it takes quite a bit beyond dissent to get banned. Not so on the left. Dissent is not allowed on that side of the aisle, and actual arguments based on analytical reasoning is also not pursued – again the “argument” from the left consists of “racist!!” or somesuch – depending on the issue.
And, posting your conservative friendly bona-fides does not change the fact that your first instinct was to create a staw-man cliche of conservatives and change the topic rather than addressing the point of the post. Again, ask yourself, what is it about your ideology that leads you to that?
Gabe,
Old chum. Can I call you Gabe? Thanks.
If it’s reactionary crazies you want, you’ll have better luck at DU or Kos.
We’re more your average Neanderthals here. You know, grunt, fart, spit, slap at flies. Occasionally chemically altered, but never crazy.
And we’re all hypermasculine–even the chicks who are also very hot, but every single one can open a can of whupass up on a fairy lefty.
That echo you hear is your racing heart. I know it must be exciting to be around us super sexy hypermasculine types.
“You don’t understand the class structure of American society,” said Smetana, “or you would not ask such a question. In the United States, the working class are Democrats. The middle class are Republicans. The upper class are Communists.”
— Whittaker Chambers, Witness
Could well be. Even in pre-internet days, we were all forever in a lather of indignation over some outrageous thing we read in The Nation. Hell, The Nation would have gone bankrupt a dozen times over, if not for all of us reading it, scoping for gotchas!
But it’s best to give lefties too much rather than too little publicity, as so many countries found out to their cost, over the past century.
I must have missed all those leftists calling for the banning of things like The Satanic Verses and the Mohammed cartoons.
I did see, however, Spain cracking down on a royal family sex cartoon with nary a peep from the right about the Spainofascist threat to free speech. Same with Greece and their irrational fear of Jesus cartoons. God knows if some European nation had done the same over the Mohammed cartoons we’d be hearing endless paranoid ramblings about the “Eurabia” dystopia and the Mohammedan Hordes outbreeding everyone subjecting them to dhimmitude.
“And will is really no more than ego projected onto the world by power, whether that power be rhetorical or something more obviously resembling totalitarianism.”
What he said. ^
I must have missed all those leftists calling for the banning of things like The Satanic Verses and the Mohammed cartoons.
Uhh, maybe not the Satanic Verses, but the liberal-left were extremely supportive in censoring Mohammed cartoons (quick, name me one leftleaning american paper that published them) out of multicultural tolerance, which is the very point of this post.
The liberal-left is going out of its way to accomodate Islam at the expense of free speech – look at plays closed in England, cartoons not run, etc. Moreover, the liberal left, who once wanted to change the world for freedom, now wants to accomdate islamic states that stone gays, have honor killings, and basically treat women like property – again in the name of multiculturalism.
The right complains about spending tax money on bad art that is sacriligious (i.e., NEA grants for things like “piss christ”), but does not call for censorship of such art. That is a major distinction that most leftists simply fail to understand.
By contrast, leftist create “speech codes” on college campuses telling people what they can and cannot say – all in the furtherance of multiculturalism. Again, the point of the post. Leftist want to pass more and more “hate crimes” laws, which criminalizes thoughts, etc. I can find many, many examples of left censorship in America.
So, you are factual incorrect by a mile. Moreover, I was not aware of the Spanish and Greek cases you cite – and am against censorship anywhere. Of course, b/c I am against censorship does not mean that I won’t criticize people for saying things and/or printing things. Again, that is a distinction that the left can’t seem to grasp.
So, try again.
I’d like to follow up with the question of whether these liberal bogeymen are perhaps, and don’t take this the wrong way, getting more publicity from their detractors than is entirely warranted? You know, having their impact magnified by the right-wing echo chamber, as it were. Because the stuff that Andrew Anthony is writing about sounds a lot like Inside Baseball, not cultural touchstones.
It is true that in the blogosphere, you’re more likely to see nits get picked at, mountains made of molehills, and positive feedback loops that turn a slight whimper into a banshee scream.
In the meatworld, however, the crazies run the asylum in many cases. In Hollywood, academia, and the news media, far-left crazies are over-represented, and the rest lean left enough to forgive their excesses. And in these three institutions we have the formulation of the nation’s ideological circulatory system. Many of the left’s favorite memes are considered conventional wisdom in Middle America, and I still run into debunking of things I thought were true:
1) In the military, the enlisted slobs are the victims of the unrelenting ambition and sociopathy of the officers. Enlisted men eat bad food in the “chow halls” while generals dine on steak. Enlisted men are just cannon fodder, pins on a map, pawns in an elaborate chess match, and top brass never feels the pain of their deaths. Hollywood is the primary promoter of this idea, which you can see represented on many if not most episodes of M*A*S*H, once my absolute favorite show.
2) Humans are a blight on Mother Earth, and everything we do is bad for it. Manmade chemicals are bad for you, where as natural substances are wholesome. Want me to make you a salad out of the greens in my yard? Want extra Foxglove (Digitalis) or Nightshade?
3) Poverty causes crime. People are naturally good, but bad situations and institutions twist them into “bad” people, who only need some TLC and sunshine to pull them out of their troubles.
Ad infinitum. These are all leftie ideas that are manifestly not true. I could go on, but I’ve gotta take a lunch break.
No, we’re still not seeing eye to eye here. I KNOW the folks who led to the far-right stereotype. I have sat at the table where Schiavo was mentioned during grace. I have ridden in the big SUV. I have been lectured on the homosexual agenda of the public schools. And lo, I have perused the dust-jacket of Godless in the house of a friend. Verily, I have seen what I have said.
I didn’t make a value judgement about the stereotype (so pull the claws back in, unless you disagree that that’s the stereotype), I just said that it is based firmly in fact, I have found it eminently anecdotally supportable, whereas the liberal stereotype that some of you guys are bandying about in your addlepated descriptions of me is beyond my ken. And being a bonafide liberal (I have a subscription to Mother Jones, fools! I voted for Nader in 2000!), I would expect to have run across such a stereotype if it were every bit as valid as the corresponding right-wing one. But, reasonable dude that I am, I can conceive that my experience is not all-encompassing, so I asked what I asked.
Now you’re saying that this stereotype IS pervasive, that I can go to any left-wing site and find it, that any global warming skeptic will be met with vitriol, but I think your generalization assumes a great deal more ideological and intellectual unity on the left than actually exists. The whole reason the left gets its clock cleaned so regularly in contests with the right is that it’s fractious by its very nature. This isn’t a movement, it’s a motley crew of movements cobbled together in opposition to a common enemy, or the perception of a common enemy. So it just sounds silly when folks refer to the liberal orthodoxy like it’s monolithic. Just to play to the peanut gallery for a second, I think the left wing of American politics is a lot like anti-American terrorists: there’s as many reasons and rationales as there are combatants, and to atack them like they’re an organized group is foolhardy at best, and suicidal at worst.
So when Andrew Anthony refers to “a large section of liberalism” I think he betrays his own tunnel-vision. I don’t know what circles this guy is running in, but I don’t think they’re representative of any larger group, and thus capable of having their traits extrapolated to a large enough section of society to justify the attention lavished upon them.
[i]WHOA! Cool it, chums. Ask a simple question and you get buried in a pile of reactionary crazies. [/i]
Gabriel: Can you point me to the pile of reactionary crazies who buried you? All I saw was people honestly answering your question. I live in NYC and around here, those lefty caricatures that even some of the people on this comment thread say are the fringe aren’t. They are the norm. At least in NYC.
Read comment 19 by dicentra. IMO, she hits the nail right on the head. Even if some of your best friends are conservative.
I’m a little different. I am pretty much of a leftist myself, but I find conservatives far more tolerable than liberals. Because, much as I disagree with many of their priorities, in general they are more in tune with reality and more open to having their opinions questioned.
And that’s something important–it’s been my experience that people who have a good reason for believing what they believe don’t mind having their beliefs challenged and sometimes even welcome it–because they are comfortable defending them. It’s also been my experience that liberals become very angry when their beliefs are challenged–generally because they cannot articulate a reason why they believe what they believe. So they try to shout down the opposition.
Gabriel,
To follow up on the Banana’s comment: it’s not exactly Inside Baseball when it has real and demonstrable effects in the world. Andrew Anthony’s observations are congruent with my own, and I daresay with anyone who lives and works among Progressive true believers: many subjects are sacred, such that one may not even question them without being treated as a heretic. The examples have been listed ad nauseum: affirmative action, gay marriage, the character and intellect of the President, global warming, industrial agriculture, &c.
I volunteer at KFAI, a community radio station in Minneapolis that is bursting at the seams with unreformed Progressives. Cranky contrarian that I am, I look forward to our twice-yearly pledge drives because it gives me a reason to lock myself in a room with Progressive phone-answerers, and we get to have a merry debate when the phones aren’t ringing (and for a lot of the station’s shows, you can count pledges without taking your shoes off).
It is rare that I find a debate partner willing to question his or her orthodoxy in the least. I can cite history (ancient and/or recent) showing that a particular philosophy or course of action has unintended side effects. I can cite studies, or philosophy, or just fall back on basic human nature, and still it is impossible to question the basic Truths that people have an intrinsic right to free health care, high wages for unskilled labor, magical non-polluting industry, and equal outcomes for all people regardless of their talent or level of effort.
They don’t want to hear that equal opportunity demands a diversity of outcomes. They don’t understand, and don’t want to understand, what a moral hazard is. They honestly believe that the rich make money either through magic, accident, or malfeasance, and that since this money appears from nowhere there is no reason not to take it away from the rich for The Greater Good. They honestly believe that organic subsistence farming and cottage industry is a nobler and superior way of life, no matter how much they may enjoy the fruits of mass production, high-tech engineering and medicine.
These debate partners of mine are real, and they are highly motivated (one might say relentless) in their agitation and advocacy with local and higher government. They punch far above their weight with City Council and with the Legislature. They wield extraordinary cultural power at the University, to the point where their orthodoxy goes entirely unquestioned in most departments. They dominate the local alternative media, and that influence filters into the mainstream media through a thousand personal connections.
We can’t build a new power plant because coal pollutes and nukes are scary. We can’t close an unused rec center because THINK OF THE CHILDREN! And we can’t keep our goddamned bridges from falling down because more than a quarter of our transportation budget goes to bike paths nobody rides on and toy trains that nobody rides in.
So, I respectfully disagree with your Inside Baseball assertion. The mindset is real, and wields real power not only to shape the discussion, but also to bring about real-world results.
Christ. See? Tedious is way worse than boring. Leftists is leftists. Not our fault they all hate each other.
“Comment by AJB on 8/23 @ 1:07 pm #
I must have missed all those leftists calling for the banning of things like The Satanic Verses and the Mohammed cartoons.”
But the reactionary left didn’t condemn the murderous fatwa against Rushdie.
Which speaks volumes.
Silently.
Re-read the posts, Gabriel. The reactionary crazies seem to lack that whole “reactionary crazy” aspect to them. In fact, they answered you. Even after you called them reactionary crazies and went transparently faux-timid in your next quote (showboating).
You might have wanted crazies demanding a prayer-meeting right here, right now, to discuss Shiavo’s soul, or talk about how rad their flag magnets are, or whatever. Admit that you didn’t.
That’s because you’re not paying attention. As I recall, the EU and the UN are looking at including (mandatory) “respect for religious figures” under their bizarre interpretations of human rights. The paucity of reprints of the Mohammed cartoons in the US is defacto censorship, as are the examples of “hate crimes” being extended to include walking on flags that happen to include “there is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet” and minor property crimes that happen to include a Koran owned by a library.
There have also been plenty of leftists who have expressed their dismay not at Rushdie being threatened with death, but with his poor taste in choosing that subject matter (or, at least, title). And his support for Rushdie’s death sentence hasn’t exactly made Yusuf Islam (aka Cat Stevens) persona non grata…
Interesting, Gabriel can prove – through his own assertions – that all conservatives are just as he says.
While we give him example after example demonstrating the truth of the original post (which, by the way he still refuses to address in any way, as is typical of a leftist), and he states that is not true b/c the left is, by its nature, fractured. You see, there is no fracture on the right. We are a top-down orginization and are all told what to think.
Fry is basically the guy we are talking about and does not even have the self-awareness to realize it. He believes in cliches about the right, he won’t rationally argue a point but keeps pointing out how he KNOWS “x” to be true and therefore “x” is true. He does not actually address the issues raised in the post. And he does not address anyone’s actual comments, preferring to address the comments he believes were made.
Yet, it never occurs to him that if his position were supportable, he would actually make a rational argument. Telling.
the liberal stereotype that some of you guys are bandying about in your addlepated descriptions of me is beyond my ken.
It is VERY DIFFICULT to see the nuance in a position that you don’t agree with. The positions you DO agree with, however, appear multi-layered and well thought-out because you ruminate on them, discuss them with friends who won’t go ballistic when you float a “forbidden” idea, and read books and articles on the subject that don’t piss you off with their initial assumptions.
However, when you encounter people whose fundamental assumptions about reality are different from yours, YOUR MIND will tend to lump them together in an un-nuanced generalization, not because you’re a bad guy, but because that’s what the human brain does. I find that I also have a tendency to stereotype libs, and occasionally put my foot in my mouth with my left-leaning colleagues when I assume that they must believe X and Y because they expressed Z.
This isn’t a movement, it’s a motley crew of movements cobbled together in opposition to a common enemy, or the perception of a common enemy.
Uh, also true of the right. Many of the popular blogs in the dextrosphere, such as Ace of Spades, Little Green Footballs, Instapundit, Hot Air, and this one you are reading are hosted by people who don’t fit into your stated stereotype AT ALL. You should have seen the catfights on LGF during the Schiavo era (Charles had to close threads and apply the ban stick), and none of the proprietors of those blogs are particularly religious (Allahpundit is an anti-theist who frequently clashes with his commenters). Right now, the country is divided along hawk and dove lines. It makes for some odd bedfellows over here, too.
I didn’t make a value judgement about the stereotype, I just said that it is based firmly in fact, I have found it eminently anecdotally supportable,
And it is anecdotally as easy to dismember, as are all stereotypes. To wit:
I know plenty of the caricatured “conservatives†who think Bush is a genius I don’t, I just don’t think he’s the devil.
hate gays, nope
think intelligent design should be taught in school, negatory
drive huge SUVs with flag and ribbon magnets on them, Mazda Protegé, no stickers at all
read Ann Coulter books, read two, don’t worship at her altar
assert that Sean Hannity is a great debater, an amiable chap, but a horrific debater
pray for Terri Schiavo’s murdered soul, wherever she is, she doesn’t need MY prayers
but the liberal bogeyman has never presented himself to me face to face. You wouldn’t recognize him if you did. He’d seem a reasonable, well-balanced fellow to you, and his positions on various subjects would seem nuanced as all get-out.
However, I have met the stereotyped liberals, plenty of them, but I AM experienced enough to know that superficial signs of being a frothing lib (Volvo plastered with leftie slogans, Birkenstocks, broomstick skirts, user of euphemisms, guilt-ridden over putting things in the landfill or driving a non-hybrid car, member of the environmental religion, vegan, arts-festival enthusiast) often hide people who are more nuanced than I realize. It’s just that our differences make it difficult to get that deep into each others’ thoughts.
I know someone who said he was going to vote for Hillary Clinton for president. That work for you?
Sure, synova. But do you wear a flag lapel pin, or have a ribbon on your SUV?
I bet you do.
I put environmental plates on my SUV.
Here’s another analogy:
You’re a white boy. You go to China. You say to yourself, “Holy crap, these people all LOOK ALIKE!”
They don’t of course, but they do to you because all you can see at first are the points on which they differ from anglos: the eyes, the small noses, the straight black hair.
Then you live in China for a year, and the faces begin to distinguish themselves. You find that they in fact look very different, because you have taken the time to get to know them as individuals. You notice how they differ from each other, not how they differ from you.
Likewise, the ways in which your ideological opponents differ from you will stand out, and you’ll notice how these little signs tend to pop up frequently. But until you get over the ways in which they are different from you, you’ll never see how they differ from each other.
How we differ from each other.
“Has anyone ever met one of these guilt-driven, orthodoxy-contorted liberals?”
I’ll play the Leftist game and say that if you claim you haven’t, then you ARE one.
A short direct answer would be yes, many of us have been to a University, where apparently a goodly number of them are paid (some with my tax dollars) to do whatever it is that they do as a productive exercise worthy of compensation
The heck with environmental plates on the SUV… I’m more of a straight shooter… I’ve got a “Pave the Rainforest” sticker on mine.
So, okay, take Bush.
And try an experiment, Gabriel.
When you’re not with your super conservative SUV drivers praying, but with “normal” people, try suggesting that Bush isn’t so bad after all. Point out that the economy has some up-points to it. Suggest, ever so cautiously, that the rights of women have been improved in Iraq and were most certainly improved by the force of arms in Afghanistan, and that this is a good thing.
And see what happens.
Dicentra is right, I think. We notice the things that grate, not the things that don’t. When we’re surrounded by approval we perceive an approving atmosphere.
Dicentra does it again. That is a fabulous analogy.
(Except for the part where you come back from China, look around at your anglo (I soooo hate the word anglo, I’m norse!) friends and think, “how do they tell each other apart?”)
the liberal stereotype that some of you guys are bandying about in your addlepated descriptions of me is beyond my ken.
Gabriel:
I have taught in several different universities for over 25 years, and I assure you that what you refer to as a stereotype is in fact an exact depiction of 90% of my past and present colleagues.
I think SUVs are kind of silly, but I do>/i> have an NRA sticker on my diesel pickup, Gabriel. I could give a rat’s ass about Schiavo or gay marriage either one, except to say that neither warrants the attention of the U.S. Congress, being respectively individual or state matters.
That’s it, I’m swearing off italics forever.
Alec is likely right-on as well. As an example, I haven’t met that many honest to goodness man-hating femi-nazis, but every one of them was utterly convinced that the label did not apply to her.
There’s a woman I work with who called the IRS and asked if there’s any way her taxes would not be used for the Iraq war. She also berated a couple of cops she saw leaving a New Years Eve party at the Drake in Chicago. They handcuffed a drunk and left him lying face down on the floor. She inisisted that this was a stress position and the drunk would get hurt if he were left lying there. Eventually, to placate her, they had the drunk sit up. Ordinarily, this woman’s a basically kind person and can be reasonable at work but she definitely has her hot buttons.
Ya know, I have to wonder — what’s wrong with someone praying for Schiavo?
“There’s a woman I work with who called the IRS and asked if there’s any way her taxes would not be used for the Iraq war.”
I admire this woman’s (lack of) understanding of economics.
Rob, one word: GODBAGS!
Also, “Yes ma’am, we’ll just mark all of your dollars with a white dove so we’ll be super sure they’ll go towards more pork spending rather than the war.”
I’d like to ask what she thinks of foreign aid relating to how it makes not exactly nice governments receiving it behave. But why ask what I already know the answer to?
#
Comment by Jim in KC on 8/23 @ 2:07 pm #
That’s it, I’m swearing off italics forever.
Remember, italics are teh ghey.
Sure, Rob, rub my face in it with the italics.
Cool. I’m off to buy a triple-white VW convertible and some shoes…
Too and also, it might be a function of where one lives. Here in Texas, I see plenty of bumper stickers with different slogans, but I can easily tell the cars driven by liberals.
They’re the ones with bumper stickers all over the backside.
Hmmm.
IMHO a “Progressive” is someone willing to sell out today, for a possibility tomorrow.
Hmmmm.
Remember, italics are teh ghey.
And they make good pizza!
Hmmm.
assert that Sean Hannity is a great debater
Good GOD!! Not in this lifetime thank you! Hannity is just about the worst debater I’ve ever seen or heard in my life.
I’m in TX, too and oddly, in my town at least, I never see any lefty Volvos; the ones that are plastered all over with slogans (Quagmire!)are often VW Passats, sometimes Jettas. Anyone else seen that?
I do have a huge SUV with a W sticker, and US and TX flag stickers, but I don’t meet any of Gabriel’s other criteria. Also, I’m very involved in several environmental groups, ones that are apolitical.
Fry,
Doesn’t the fact that your dissent is tolerated and engaged here, whre ours (at least mine) has been summarily banned from no less than six Leftist blogs – and more than once on a few of them – evidence of Anthony’s observation?
According to a radom sampling of liberal blogs, I am a misogynist, racist, imperialist, patriarchal, fascist, gay, homophobic, pedophilic, hate mongering, unemployed loser who occupies my mother’s basement and doesn’t get laid. They know all of this – I do not know how.
OK, Gabriel, let’s play “What’s His Political Ideology?”
I wear Birkenstocks, drive a Volvo (sorry, no stickers), recycle, belong to a local co-op, strongly disagree with some of Bush’s major policies and initiatives, believe that only late-term abortions should be disallowed, don’t care about gay marriage, and think marijuana should be decriminalized. Since you’re so adept at caricaturization, where do I fall in your right/left, conservative/liberal spectrum?
Don’t know? Don’t care? Fine. But you’re simply not the first to show up here and broad-brush the host and the regulars. And, I’ll add, I find your confessed inability to locate any locus of hard-core lefties to be a tad disingenuous.
“Good GOD!! Not in this lifetime thank you! Hannity is just about the worst debater I’ve ever seen or heard in my life.”
As a matter of fact, I recall having several conversations with fellow “Rs†remarking that Hannity is actually aping Leftist “debate†tactics.
Posit something outrageous, demonstrate said outrage, threaten to call your interlocutor the choice epithet (e.g. racist), and demand that they change their political views or be branded with the epithet once and for all. Of course, when Leftists do it, they skip the formality of the threats and skip right to the branding, but you get the idea.
Ok. I got an answer to my question. You guys DO know these liberal stereotypes you talk about. A “yes” would have sufficed (and did, in several cases).
By “crazies” I mean those posters who assumed malice on my part and responded accordingly. The words “idiotic generalization” and “douchenozzle” come to mind. “Pile” was hyperbole, I’ll admit.
But Senor Banana is still pretending, 40 posts down, that I’m condemning conservatives as all conforming to the stereotype I mentioned. He argues like a dog that’s been beat too much, always seeing a threat where there is none.
I am in the polar opposite of the situation Squid describes in #36. I’m the token liberal. Which is why I came here, because explaining the flaws in the Lincoln/Bush analogy for the 25th time has just, you know, lost its sparkle. So I’m glad that we’re low on that frothing stereotype here.
But back to the post, I’m a modern liberal, and I take issue with Jeff’s characterization of modern liberals. I don’t put any stock in multi-culti-feel-goodism, and I see neither dust nor public acceptance settling on my ideas. I feel profoundly disenfranchised, far more as a result of those who pretend to be liberals (the fine Americans that Great Banana expounds upon in #26) than because of the briefly ascendant GOP.
So moving forward, there is a certain amount of noise made about rescuing the party of conservatism and libertarianism from the clutches of the neoconservatives on the liberal end of things, because conservatives and libertarians are real people with valid ideas. Is there a similar sort of chatter about rescuing the party of liberalism from the self-centered hippie nostalgia that so often pretends to speak for it (ahem*Sheehan*ahem)? I haven’t heard any, but I’m asking you.
My definition of a modern liberal:
A man who believes that he must win every argument with force and every war with polite discourse.
Has anyone ever met one of these guilt-driven, orthodoxy-contorted liberals?
Yes. And being black and all, I’m related to a few of them. The latter, however, aren’t [white] guilt-driven, for obvious reasons.
You shouldn’t, if it doesn’t describe you. Those who self-describe as liberals often are anything but. Which is why I use “left-liberal” or “progressive” to describe the kind of ideologues I’m talking about.
Unfortunately, they are the squeaky wheel among the Democrats these days, and the Dems identify themselves as liberals.
Too, as someone who (like dicentra) has spent a fair amount of time inside the university system (the mosts instructive moments are during hirings, often times), I can say with certainty that these types are the mainstream of contemporary academic thought in the humanities and social sciences — and that their ideas are often polished to remove the angry edges and then repackaged and spun to into feel good bromides.
I would bet, in fact, that though you say you don’t put any stock into multicultural feel-goodism, you likely do (for instance, do you support “hate crimes” laws? strict separation of church and state? Where do you stand on Christmas decorations? The Pledge of Allegiance? Race-based affirmative action? Proportional representation? Interpretation theory?) — or else you couldn’t possibly be a self-described liberal.
Because the fact is, many “liberal” policies are merely the polished version of the kind of multicultural claptrap that has been repackaged for mass consumption.
You know, the kind that think I’m a “conservative” or a GOP booster rather than a classical liberal.
It has been repeatedly established they have the ability to read minds.
A “yes†would have sufficed (and did, in several cases).
Is there a way in which those who were inclined to respond could have known this in advance? Your questions and assertions contain the implication that you were looking for people to say that they, on the contrary, did actually know the type of liberal/leftist described. That type of response requires more that just a single-worded answer in the affirmative.
“Is there a similar sort of chatter about rescuing the party of liberalism from the self-centered hippie nostalgia that so often pretends to speak for it (ahem*Sheehan*ahem)? I haven’t heard any, but I’m asking you.”
Not that I can discern. Personally, I think the nutroots’ influence is over-estimated, not least by themselves. But how to explain the Dem prez candidates’ solicitousness to them, the same group who are trying to ostracize the DLC? If I were a liberal Democrat, I’d be worried about the direction my party is leaning. Fortunately, I’m not.
We talked about that here a bit. Mostly mockingly I guess.
And, Gabriel, I suspect that if you had received 50 or so responses containing the lone word ‘yes,’ you would have been asking for detailed proof.
Jeez there’s a lot of you. Hard to keep up.
re: #67 Kelly. Damnit. I am not broad-brushing anyone, I just threw out a stereotype and said I can verify it, and asked if there was similar field-reporting from the other side of the political spectrum, not having seen it myself, which seemed appropriate and worth discussing, given the broad-brushing going on in the original post. Not to say that I don’t appreciate all the free psychoanalysis.
re: 48 Synova. I don’t agree with all your points, but overall, yes, I do that, it’s not the turd in the punchbowl you might expect. The first round of tax-cuts was fairly reasonable, certainly more than the second round, but to divorce the tax-cuts from the spending hike doesn’t make sense to me. Taken in that context, it’s bad policy, and thus evidence of poor economic stewardship. There are good points about the economy to an extent, the market has been good to me, but I’m not in denial about the fact that a bull market based on credit is a temporary bull market, and I think we’re seeing the results of that now, so I can’t reasonably see crowing about Bush’s economic contributions as a whole. I do think the invasion of Afghanistan was a good idea, and I think we did a lot of good there, but my “progressive” friends were protesting the Taliban in ’99, and while they were lampooned as being bleeding-heart interventionists at the time, that irony hasn’t prevented them from supporting the Bush intervention. However, it’s difficult to commend Bush’s foreign military policy, given that he invaded Iraq, which I totally disagreed with at the time and still do, and given that the Taliban and al Qaeda are resurgent in Afghanistan and its neighbors, and Afghanistan has become a colossal opiate factory, it’s difficult to give Bush a whole lot of credit. What does he expect, points for trying? I don’t see the value in looking for the silver lining in the actions of someone who is in power.
So sure, we liberals have our unstereotypical groups as well, and my contention is that we’re the norm, and these wackos and their shibboleths are the fringe. That, were certain folks to take it to heart, would put quite the wrench in the depiction of liberals that emerges in Jeff’s analysis of Anthony’s piece.
Gabriel, you say you feel disenfranchised?
What do you mean by that? That you have no one to vote for?
Let me help you out, then. An excerpt:
Then, there’s this:
Not the same as calling for a fatwa, sure — but granting legitimacy to the crazed responses to a novel by claiming sympathy to those so filled with theocratic blindness that they simply can’t make find distinctions just promotes a kind of soft relativism.
This, to me, speaks of the kind multicultural feel-goodism about which I wrote.
Hope that helps.
“So sure, we liberals have our unstereotypical groups as well, and my contention is that we’re the norm, and these wackos and their shibboleths are the fringe. That, were certain folks to take it to heart, would put quite the wrench in the depiction of liberals that emerges in Jeff’s analysis of Anthony’s piece.”
If you guys WERE the norm, then the folks here on PW would have been able to hold debates on feminism, intentionalism as far as interpreting texts in a linguistic sense… what were the last ones we had?… where the dissenters are arguing in good faith as opposed to hurling vicious epithets and nasty personal attacks in lieu of any real debate. We have had EXHAUSTIVE, so exhaustive that it must be in CAPS, experience with the liberals Jeff G. describes.
Well, let me rephrase that: if you were the norm in THESE parts.
Care to point that broad-brushing out for me, Gabriel?
I distinguished between real liberalism and contemporary progressivism, then added an additional qualifier when I talked about a specific type of academic (a few of whom I’ve been debating here of late).
And of course, you really can’t read my post outside of the context of all the posts I’ve done examing “progressive” ideology and how, exactly, it works.
Broad-brush? If anything, people might argue that I’ve explored the topic in too much detail.
See, Gabriel, you’ve sort of wandered into a free-for-all. Afghanistan is an opiate factory? Who cares? Drugs should be legalized and the whole “war on drugs” taken out behind the woodshed and shot. I’ll guarantee your civil liberties have suffered more from the “drug war” than from the GWOT (or whatever we’re calling it nowadays).
Given the alternatives, there wasn’t much choice wrt to Iraq. Letting him ignore the U.N., pay off Russia and France, build a nuclear capability and reconsititute his biowarfare program after the sanctions were removed seemed (and still seems) an unwise course of action.
I get the sense Gabriel is just going to keep asserting my supposed “broad-brushing” without actually defending the claim.
Now, I’ll concede that, from a purely aesthetic standpoint, the need to constantly qualify every statement has compelled me to use terms like “the left” as a generalization. But having explained on thousands of other occasions that I’m not talking about everybody who votes Democrat — and having written post after post analyzing, describing, deconstructing, and unpacking contemporary “progressive” political tactics and ideological assumptions — I don’t feel like I need to point out to each new reader that any instance they can find of my having used a convenient generalization is not proof that I am given to generalizing.
Though I’ll grant you the accusation has been a convenient way to avoid talking about the issues I raise — which, as OHNOES points out, have been made manifest here on any number of occasions, and are apparent in the reactions to my attempts to reach out actively and engage left-leaning sites in debates over feminism, race, and a host of other issues.
How about a realization that perfection is not an option in the real world?
You may think you’re not one of the stereotypical “liberals”, but you’ve just exposed the (IMHO) classical left-liberal flaw: the inability to see anything as good that falls short of perfection.
(Although, admittedly, they don’t show that tendency when looking at their own programs.)
Why not give Bush credit for having removed — and kept from controlling Afghanistan — the Taliban? For having improved the lot of Afghan women? Of having ended Saddam’s tyranny? Of having ended Libya’s WMD program?
No, he hasn’t had a perfect record, and there are plenty of places we’d criticize, too. But the letting the perfect be the enemy of the good is destructive.
I like Gabriel. He writes well and acknowledges other people’s viewpoints, and I think I would trust him to take care of my dog when I was out of town. I don’t have a dog though.
“The first round of tax-cuts was fairly reasonable, certainly more than the second round, but to divorce the tax-cuts from the spending hike doesn’t make sense to me.”
You’ll find few here who would disagree.
“I can’t reasonably see crowing about Bush’s economic contributions as a whole.”
Ditto. But then I’ve never been one to give all that much credit to any President for “economic contribution” be they “R” or “D”. For some reason I keep stumbling over, y’know, the fact that Congress passed the tax cuts and controls spending.
“but I’m not in denial about the fact that a bull market based on credit is a temporary bull market”
You do know the difference between a stock and a bond, don’t you? OK, sorry for the snark. But if you believe the current bull market in stocks is solely based on “credit”, you need to study up a bit more. Here’s a start: the amount of money worldwide in the debt market is seven times larger than what’s invested in equities. Add in the fact that credit has been very cheap until very recently, you will naturally get economic distortions. Distortions that are working themselves out right now in the form of repricing of risk.
One of my biggest frustrations is hearing almost any “progressive” (not you, Gabriel) talk about the capital markets or economics in general. Most are mindbogglingly ignorant.
Hi Jeff, nice site. The broad-brushing to which I referred was mostly in Anthony’s writing, but you followed it (and I thought continued it) with “But what is not debatable is that modern “liberalism†(more properly, contemporary “progressivismâ€Â)  and, in particular, its academic boosters  is absolutely committed to defending its long-held positions, even if doing so…” which, while it does slightly refocus on the “academic progressives,” does so only mildly, since the sentence without the digression in the middle still indicts all of modern liberalism. I took it as broad-brushing. See where I’m coming from? And as far as the context of your oeuvre goes, I’ll confess I’ve only been reading for a few months, and maybe not exhaustively enough. Sorry man, a kid’s gotta work and play and stuff. And speaking of, if you want answers to your parenthetical questions about Christmas, I’ll have to hold off till tomorrow because I’m out of time.
But I love a free-for-all, this is good times.
What a pleasant person.
Why’d you close your bold tag when you did, JG?
Just curious.
Hi Jeff, nice site. The broad-brushing to which I referred was mostly in Anthony’s writing, but you followed it (and I thought continued it) with “But what is not debatable is that modern “liberalism†(more properly, contemporary “progressivismâ€Â)  and, in particular, its academic boosters  is absolutely committed to defending its long-held….
But I love a free-for-all, this is good times.
Comment by happyfeet on 8/23 @ 4:01 pm #
What a pleasant person.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: It’s a trap!
The “…without relying on hilarious constructs like ‘culture of life.'” bit was charming. Beguiling maybe, but still kind of charming even if.
Is Gabriel gunning for PW resident liberal? I believe we do have an opening …
Pity, really. Gabriel had some potential. Unfortunately, he left with the same assumptions he came in with.
Blah, blah, blah.
Let’s cut to the chase. When is someone going to threaten to kick Gabriel’s ass?
When is someone going to threaten to kick John Warner’s poncey geriatric ass?
“A short direct answer would be yes, many of us have been to a University, where apparently a goodly number of them are paid (some with my tax dollars) to do whatever it is that they do as a productive exercise worthy of compensation”
Heck, even if you don’t care for them, watch O’Reilly or Hannity & Colmes. They have these nutcases on there spouting off on a regular basis. They’re pretty darn easy to find. Just listen.
Hey Gabe… Really liked that part on those of us on the right “escaping the clutches of the neoconservatives”. Maybe you should have elaborated a bit there: you know, “cabal, hook noses, clannish, divided loyalty”.
Let it all hang out, Dude… you’re amongst friend here.
“When is someone going to threaten to kick Gabriel’s ass?”
Martial threats aren’t really part of the PW oeuvre,son.
I confess I would kick John Warners poncey geriatric ass with my satin flats, but I just found out I am a come-on coward, by way of a cosmo quiz. In other confessions i just took a cosmo quiz. This is the “True Confessions” thread, right?
Because these are the topics we’d been discussing here recently in this same context. I haven’t written much on homosexuality as western decadence because I haven’t run in to it much. It could also be something that is more pronounced in Britain.
At any rate, most of the debate lately with the type of academic I’m talking about here has been over race and free speech, so I chose to highlight those points as a way to bring the last month or so of postings into sharper relief.
Why do you ask?
Not really, because I wrote the sentence WITH the qualifier in the middle, and put modern “liberalism” in quotation marks, because while the kind of “liberalism” I’m dissecting here considers itself liberal, I do not.
Don’t know how long you’ve been reading, but I self identity as a classical liberal. Others have tagged me with the “conservative” tag — not unfairly, I don’t think, given that much of contemporary conservatism resembles classical liberalism.
I self identify as a third-world minority woman classical liberal.
Are you going to tell me I can’t?
Essentialist!
Gabriel Fry — Please. I meet them on a daily basis through work (publishing) and at the weekly protest I counter-rally. Even if I hadn’t laid eyeballs on meat I can read them in my alternate-press weekly here in town, where they take up valuable space that could be more profitably used for even more titty-bar and outcall hooker ads, or moaning away on our two, count’em two NPR stations.
Ask me rather if anyone has seen the sun, or laid eyes upon the ocean…
Since it appears the hive has driven off yet another chafing nuisance, may I briefly weigh in? You’re right, in many respects. The lefty/righty archetype is a valuable weapon, used effectively by both sides.
Cynn:
Wait. We drove Gabe off? Really? Surely, he can stand much more than this thread.
I tried something very similar to that here. I asked anyone who read the post to leave one unqualified complement about George Bush. That post stayed there for two weeks and ended up with 13 comments. Of those, two were mine and two were from folks I know are right-leaning bloggers. Of the remaining nine comments, only three were sincerely complementary. The remaining six were either incredibly insulting or suggested that there was no way they could ever find a single good thing to say about the President and that I was an unadulterated idiot for even suggesting such a thing was possible.
Take that for what it’s worth.
Hillary! summed up todays’ progressivism best during the 2004 election campaign when she said, and I paraphrase, they don’t have to fall in love; they just have to fall in line.
Cynn, you’re going to have to help me understand how a final comment that ends
indicates that someone’s been “driven off.”
101. Comment by SarahW
LOL, funny lady!
I’m bored. Gabriel reminds me too much of Luis. He was pretty polite while calling us racist, homophobic, monolinguist crackers, wasn’t he?
Wow Squid, that’s basically an independent Pacifica station, your KFAI. The one in LA is just down the street. They don’t landscape and usually just pick up the trash out front twice a year or so – I walk by there a lot. I saw Amy Goodman getting out of a car once there, and she was kind of regal, but mostly, the people are kind of unkempt. Remarkably thin though, mostly. There are definitely some exceptions. I haven’t listened in awhile, but it really absolutely floored me when I first did. But from my sense of it I’m really surprised they would let anyone in that’s of a different tribe. They seem really angry.
Again, cynn, that was a rhetorical question.
Guilt ridden liberals?
I call them PINKNECKS.
They have become all they started out hating.
Reactionary. Dogmatic. Users and ultimately creators of stereotypes, with which to more easily make it to the end of each day. Political cocaine.
The REDNECKS they used to hate, they’ve become. In a color only the left could love.
They profess free speech, but can’t be challenged
They profess fairness yet need to play rigged games.
Are champions of race diversity yet exclude.
They are non biased yet claim that facts nor truth matter as much as the “NARRITIVE”
They are in desperate times as their charades are becoming harder and harder to maintain.
The average joe can see this.
Dear everyone – Please simplify the responses to Mr. Fry. Go back to Plato and faerie tales because….
A.) Your complex analyses and attempts to educate are all wasted on the epitome of the Socratic student “who WOULD NOT learn”.
B.) As in the tale of the King with no clothes; his monumental ego, self-righteous certainty and lack of intellectual mirrors means he will continue to blithely wander thru the village believing all around are mere mindless chattel; simply unable to appreciate his refined tastes and superior sense of style.- except that annoying kid
C.) The little fox is baiting you by giving the false impression that he’s willing to have an honest discussion. All the while he’s preparing to pounce on any weakness or fault that would reinforce his bias and bigotry. Keep in mind that bias/bigoty are emotions that do not often respond to logical arguments.
Not to be any ruder than necessary for the situation; in the end, all you can do is point out that he’s a naked fool on a “mission”.
Best regards to all
There wasn’t even time to break out the pitchforks or light the torches…
OK McGhee. Point taken. And why does this site attract so many frustrated lit crit and creative writing majors?
Cynn —
Gabriel has me on his blogroll. He evidently likes the site, so I don’t think responding to him is driving him off.
Would you prefer we not respond? Or should we be “tolerant” of his views and respond in a way that he doesn’t take offense.
Like little Jack Straws, we can all be!
Memo to the Hive: I never mentioned Gabriel Fry’s name! A bit touchy, you are.
God help us if anyone pounces on our faults.
How’s this Gabe? I work for a large county government as an administrator for a social services program (It’s a job. Not one that I particularly like, but it’s where I find myself at this particular time in my life). One of the 15 biggest in the country. I consider myself a classical liberal, or maybe a right leaning (defense/foreign policy) libertarian and am CONSTANTLY assaulted by my co-workers. By assaulted, I do mean playful banter and the occasional full-on BDS episode. Funny thing about them, though, is that they aren’t really very liberal at all. It’s good old fashioned envy and class warfare. To be sure, there are the progressives that I can honestly respect a little more, even if I disagree with their politics. But, Bush is evil/stupid/vile to these folks who at the same time say that the jihadis are misunderstood. That’s fucked, man. Just plain fucked.
Well, yeah, OI. But still, you can love them. It’s not just that some of them are really attractive, a lot of them are genuinely fun.
I’ve got an answer for Gabriel’s “Has anyone ever met one of these guilt-driven, orthodoxy-contorted liberals?”
Answer: Yo, Gabe. Here’s a mirror.
Trust me, his true colors will shine through eventually.
This moment will pass. Think Reagan’s funeral. It was impressive how many people who used to have a real hate for that guy just refused to go there. One thing I know about angry, hateful liberals, it’s not a comfortable place for a lot of them. In the future, they’ll surprise you with a genuine willingness to cozy up to history. Ten years from now, it’ll be, I didn’t agree with Bush, but this guy is just evil. When that happens you should hug them.
Jeff, don’t pull that crap with me. I despise this tippytoe stuff around sensibilities and whatnot. I look at at a case by case evaluation of moral inferiority/surperiority/ambiguity every day. Metrics change.
I’m not exactly sure what I’m arguing for though, to be honest. Metrics change, though, isn’t exactly it.
I think the point is, someone has to look after these people.
Cynn —
I don’t much like the hive thing you keep trotting out — in fact, I find it kind a silly, given the discussion going on the thread on Christianity — but at least you won’t be banned for saying it.
So think of yourself as a kind of minor Keith Olbermann, and this place as a kind of microcosm of Bush’s Fascist Amerikkka, where civil liberties are daily trampled, and the end game is to do away with elections so that the neocons can anoint Bush King for Life.
Just like Hugo Chavez — only with twangy malapropisms.
It is probably true quite generally … that’s so him
Would that be the Jackson Hive? Emerson Hive? Bachmann Turner Overhive? 2Hive Crew?
Jeff has thoroughly cut me down to sushi size; I am edible. Well, at least I’m not banned. Here’s why I’m awkwardly grateful to PW:
I can continue to despise and question this administration.
I can defy those who would reduce my beliefs into simplistic and easily encapsulated chips that go good with with nacho cheese;
I can reject those who consistently claim to speak for me, and I reserve the right to think and speak for myself.
Genuine, traditional liberals are an endangered species. In fact they are so rare now that the term may as well be retired. The correct term for what most of them have morphed into because of the changes cultural Marxism has brought to the West is “Leftist”.
#69, G. Fry;
Jumping the queue here, but yes, and yes. Check out the Euston Manifesto, and the site MutantPacifist.
I can defy those who would reduce my beliefs into simplistic and easily encapsulated chips that go good with with nacho cheese;
This is easily–EASILY–the best entry for “Really Bad Writing On A Blog Comment” for this season.
I wish you luck in the finals.
God Gawd.
Just as a data point, I’m not one of those. Although I do have to confess that my freshman English class was fairly awesome, I didn’t have any particular impulse to take any more liberal arts than was strictly necessary to get my BSEE.
Gabriel – you say you’ve been to NYC, DC and LA …and you’ve even ridden in an SUV! I’ve been to all of those places and I’ve met plenty of them. It doesn’t sound like you get out much.
As one whose family members fit the leftist mold described in this article, and who knows plenty of aging socialist wanna-bees, I can say that I used to enjoy watching the liberals having to contort their long held beliefs in womens rights, free speech etc. For some time I enjoyed watching to see how low they would be willing to sink in order to maintain that they were the righteous, better than the simple minded knuckle draggers.
But I don’t enjoy it anymore. Picking on aging, bitter, liberals seems as fun to me as it would be to kick a retarded person who has fallen down. And don’t get excited, I would never do that, it’s just that picking on liberals these days seems every bit as cruel and unkind as I imagine that act would be. They have fallen and are unable to get up. Most are old and aging and are becoming increasingly bitter and insular as they realize they can not regain the moral superiority they once believed that they held. Their entire identity seems wrapped up in it maintaining the old status quo where they got to be the hypocritical finger waggers and anyone who questioned them could be simply discounted as unwashed and uncivilized.
Today, the left has become like an Old Aunt Prudence, who would have enjoyed the same status in the late 1800’s that liberals seem to have embraced today. All day long they tsk, tsk and tut tut. They attend coffee houses like Aunt Prudence used to attend tea houses with like minded ninnys and spend their time bemoaning the young rebellious youth who think them silly ol’ prudes.
It’s over for the left. The sixties are over. And in their desire to live in that world forever, they grew up and became the very people that they once mocked.
Gabe: So. Did you try any of the suggestions to see for yourself?
Yo, cynn,
Try it, you’ll love it.
I’ve found that leftists respond far better to emotional appeals/manipulation than cold logic. That’s generally why they became leftists in the first place.
Girlfriends are similar. Sometimes they don’t want to hear the logical explanation and quantitative proof that you have, in fact, spent a great deal of time with them this week. They just want you to improve their emotional state. Sometimes I think leftists are attracted to their politics because it gives them positive emotions. To go a step further, you could even say that progressivism is the religion of the atheist. It seems to serve a similar purpose, this unquestioning faith they have.
As others have suggested, if Gabriel hasn’t noticed lefties, it means either a) he’s been disconnected from the left, or b) his is the left. At University of Buffalo, I had six different professors in unconnected classes all quote Marx, “religion is the opiate of the masses.” These words were never debate starters, but always dismissive (and narrow-minded) debate-enders. The quote got spooky after the the third time I heard it.
Ayep. They’re the types Heinlein referred to as “Mrs. Grundy”, as in:
“Freedom begins when you tell Mrs. Grundy to go take a hike.”
Funny, though, that the people who believe they “gave” us free speech and sexual freedom have, themselves, so damned repressive.
I hope someone eventually pointed out that, no, opium is the opiate of the masses.
Fry,
But back to the post, I’m a modern liberal, and I take issue with Jeff’s characterization of modern liberals. I don’t put any stock in multi-culti-feel-goodism, and I see neither dust nor public acceptance settling on my ideas. I feel profoundly disenfranchised, far more as a result of those who pretend to be liberals (the fine Americans that Great Banana expounds upon in #26) than because of the briefly ascendant GOP.
So, you agree with the original post you said you didn’t agree with? Otherwise why would you be profoundly disenfranchised by the modern liberals? You are contradicting yourself. Not surprising.
I tried pointing out to you many times that the issue in the original post is about the left not being willing to debate topics, instead shutting down debate with cries of “racist” etc. Do you believe that does not happen? Do you believe that is not the “mainstream” left that does it? If so, state it explicitly. then I will provide you with multiple verifiable examples to prove you wrong.
You take a swipe at me, stating my arguments are dead, but you never responded whatsoever to any of my arguments and stayed completely on this off-topic issue of whether liberals or conservatives are more true to their respective stereotypes. I don’t care really about that – in my comments I was pointing out how you immediately went for that argument – stating that conservatives ARE like the stereotype you define and denying that liberals are like their stereotype, and somehow thought such was a response to the original post.
I pointed out that such tactic is typical liberal argumentation – basically a personal attack type argument that avoids the actual issues involved (which in this post is – do liberals avoid rational argument through censoring tactics such as calling people they disagree with racists). Your first commment on this thread conformed to the rule established in the original post. You did not debate the merits, you attacked conservatives with, yes, an idiotic stereotype and then said liberals don’t fit a stereotype.
So, you proved the post’s main point basically, and did nothing in any of your comments thereafter to change that. My question to you, repeatedly is – doesn’t that open your eyes up a little about your ideology? If that is the argumentation that is taught or learned from your ideology, doesn’t it follow that your ideology must lack on the merits? After all, if your ideological side could argue a strong case on the merits of an issue, wouldn’t it? Why doesn’t it ever? Why does it always resort to calling those who dissent or disagree racist/homophobe/ sexist/evil, etc, rather than arguing on ideas?
My mom believes herself to be a middle of the road, moderate liberal.
Yet when I mentioned to her that when the press has a story about people subduing a killer with a gun, they generally omit the fact that those people ALSO had guns, she looked at me like I had grown a third eye.
To her, it was crazy talk that the press would omit such a detail. She wasn’t interested in hearing the evidence (for example, that a local paper would have the info but that the national press would leave it out).
So I would say, yes, so-called liberals have a hard time with reality. They ignore anything that is outside their carefully constructed narrative.
McGehee:
The MCHive? Love You Hive from The Rolling Stones? The Dave Clark Hive? Ted Nugent’s Double Hive Gonzo?
“Comment by Admiral Ackbar”
Allahpundit, is that you?
I don’t have a flag or the ribbon thingies on my SUV (full size V8), I do have a sticker that says ‘”I’m proud of my Eagle Scout”. Is that enough to prove my bonifides?
Spies, Etc.:
Maybe just Willie and the Hand Hive.
“# Comment by marcos d. on 8/24 @ 2:22 am #
As others have suggested, if Gabriel hasn’t noticed lefties, it means either a) he’s been disconnected from the left, or b) his is the left. At University of Buffalo, I had six different professors in unconnected classes all quote Marx, “religion is the opiate of the masses.†These words were never debate starters, but always dismissive (and narrow-minded) debate-enders. The quote got spooky after the the third time I heard it.”
My answer?
“Marxism is the opiate of the intellectual.”
No opium is the opiate of the masses, but Marxism is the opiate of the intellecutal. LOL!
It’s more like, “A rhetoric superficially resembling Marxism’s is the intellectuals’ opiate for you (and occasionally themselves),” but that’s not catchy.
I almost feel bad for Marx. Much of a racist genocidal war-loving douche as he was, the useful analytical ideas he had have been obscured by generations of assholes grinding boots (or at least earth sandals) into our faces in his name. And they’ve succeeded so thoroughly in this obscuring that there’s no one to point out the ironies of it to.
Someday it will seem sad. But today is not that day.
[…] Jeff G at the Protien Wisdom Pub takes a quick look at the will and ideas of Progressives. […]
All you racist, homophobic, monolinguist crackers are jumping on me for leaving the blog at 6:30pm? It’s a little thing called “dusk” y’all, and I suppose if all I saw was night and day like you woman-hating prayer-warriors I would have stayed till 7pm, but it’s not my fault that you fail to appreciate my nuanced position on time zones.
Haha. I think I can take a punch a little better than Luis. And I think he was totally wrong about the draft. That smacked of profound miscalculation to me. You know, just between us girls.
Banana – I love your tone. It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling. But I think if I were the type of person that you believe me to be, I’d be firing off a stinging retort like “you’re deliberately ignoring MY arguments in favor of irrelevant tangents. so typical” instead of saying what I am saying, which is that I think you’re assuming that my original post was a set-up for a familiar rhetorical trap of some sort, and I’m trying to tell you it’s not. I’m just taking issue with what looked to me like an unfair and reductive depiction of the habits and motivations of the modern liberal. But I will cop to the position that what Jeff described isn’t mainstream, so I’ll take you up on your offer of examples. We can work through this without the scratching and biting, but I don’t apologize for thinking that I’m right. I’m not a trojan horse strutting in here under the pretense of reasonableness and waiting till your guard’s down to open up the crazy. I just like to talk shop with people who disagree with me.
Although this formatting problem is giving me trouble again. I’ll look into this “Firefox” you speak of. Yes, it is ironic that
I’m having difficulty with the left justification. Laff it up.
Jimmie – I don’t think that’s really a fair test. I don’t find George Bush to be the least bit likable, I think it’s plenty generous to say he’s out of his depth and leave it at that. So finding a complement I can pay to a guy I don’t know personally and to whose policies and activities I am pretty well diametrically opposed is an empty exercise, in my opinion. He’s an elected official, and a very powerful one at that, and taken with his distaste for accountability, keeping his feet to the fire is pretty important, far more than looking for some sort of conciliatory bromide about what a nice family man he is, and how well-intentioned some of his more catastrophic blunders were.
Jeff – re: classical liberal – Yeah I think that’s what drew me here. That and the John Merrick schtick. But do you find yourself more able to stomach the right than the left, or are you more interested in staking out your own territory?
Gabriel, you’re really telling me that you can’t find one good thing to say about George Bush? Not even one?
Here, I’ll do one for you, from the other side. Senator Clinton seems to have done quite a good job raising a respectable, intelligent, lovely, and humble daughter.
And blood didn’t gush out of my eyes nor did my integrity flee from me with a banshee’s wail.
Come on, man. Stop the mincing and prancing and dimestore equivocation and do it. One little thing. The guy’s not Hitler – not even close. You can manage to think of him as a human being and a fellow American worth of some level of respect, can’t you?
Go on. I won’t tell the other leftists. Honest.
To see whether I needed to enforce my queer-leaning orthodoxy, of course, and go all “You devalue our experience with your homophobic bold tag termination!” on your ass and whatnot.
But seriously: just for context’s sake. I’m always interested in why issues get lumped together or de-lumped.
Fry,
Before we begin, I want some yes or no answers from you:
1) are you contending that the left does not attack people who disagree with them by immediatly calling such people racist / homophobe, etc?
2) are you contending that the left generally refuses to argue in good faith on topics such as affirmative action, immigration, and same-sex marriage and instead relies upon the personal attack?
3) are you contending that the left does not generally attack and vilify any left-liberal who dares to dissent from the narrative – rather than debate the issue in good faith?
If your answers to the above are “yes”, those are your contentions, I ask you to point me to a left-liberal web-site that you believe the same to be true. I will go to that site and see for myself. I have yet to see such an animal.
By the way, I understand you think you’re right. It makes it more amusing that way. The fact that you don’t see your first post here as a prime example of what I have repeatedly pointed out, strikes me as very amusing. The fact that you continued to defend that post by saying “hey, I KNOW conservatives like that” as a defense of your post just increases the humor. That you ultimately completely contradicted yourself and said that the left-liberals we are describing make you feel more disenfranchised than the right makes you feel really makes me laugh. By stating that you 1) conceded that the original post was correct and 2) that your original comment was untrue.
But, despite these contradictions, you continue to argue. It is not even clear to me at this point what you think you are arguing for or against. So, you seem to fall into another typical liberal mindset – if a conservative says “x” you must say “y”, regardless of the facts.
Ah, come on Great Banana – he’s a troll. And a dim witted one at that. He knows he’s an idiot – thus he’s reduced to making himself feel intellectual by coming in here and calling us poo-poo faces. Though I must confess, he is providing me with a warped sense of pleasure.
Gabe: “I just threw out a stereotype and said I can verify it…”
Sigh.
Look, I don’t have time to train another Little League Liberal. It appears that this one needs to be taught how to hold the freaking bat.
I’m liberal. ALL my friends are liberal. To some extent or another we all embody the traits described here, but none all of them at once. I’ve been driven quite insane by the echo so I’ve sought solitude. Pity me. I’ve been entirely alone because of this for the past 7 years.
And yet the phenomenon described above follows me into my place of solitude. A b.d. party was foisted on me in my own apartment against my stated wishes, during which a guest mentions a woman he cares for (good-hearted liberals all). He described her as a solid Bush supporter — the entire party moaned on cue. Did I tell this story already? He continues, “But she’s from Texas.” Everybody moaned again. Then, “She thinks Ann Coulter is great!” A chorus of moans. The most distressingly fascist birthday party I’ve ever been in, and it was MINE. I couldn’t wait for it to be over and to be alone again.
Where do you guys get the troll food? — I need a bag.
b3 – your blog is completely fascinating. Thank you.
Ah, the “Bush is an idiot” myth.
How charming.
The posts haven’t drifted so far off the left side of the page that I can’t read the playground insults. Just in case you were wondering. But it is getting difficult for me to read everything, so Great Banana, I’m going to have to answer you on a different computer. I apologize for the delay. But just to tide you over till then, I’ll start with this: I don’t think the meat of your contentions is entirely off the mark, but I do think that your willingness to restrict them to “the left” without restricting them to any particular portion of “the left” is incorrect. If you want a brief primer in how those annoying traits you describe can apply to “the right” as well (if you want to generalize that broadly, which I don’t), take a gander at Becky’s comments. But hey, maybe it’s more complicated than that, and we even differ on what qualifies as “debating in good faith” and “villifying those who dissent from the narrative.” Anything’s possible, right?
You know what? If I had meant to say “Bush is an idiot” I would have. But that’s not what I said, I said he’s out of his depth. You can be a reasonably smart guy and not be up to the task of running the United States, right? Is that fair to say? And I don’t see why my profound dislike of the guy, based on what I perceive his effect has been and continues to be on my country, is so unreasonable. If some dude strolled in and started mucking up your country, would you pause to say “gee, he does have a good crisp part in his hair” in the middle of your condemnation of his woefully inadequate diplomatic acumen? I would guess not.
I’m still bored. Sorry Jeff, I’m going to watch TV.
Bill Clinton understood the value of free trade to the US economy.
See? It’s not hard.
If some dude strolled in and started mucking up your country, would you pause to say “gee, he does have a good crisp part in his hair†in the middle of your condemnation of his woefully inadequate diplomatic acumen? I would guess not.
Your confusing assertion with fact. Your opinion is noted. I disagree.
The level of civility — as well as articulate arguments — on this blog is amazing. As climates go, the tone is always set at the top, so, JeffG, I salute you.
I do wish there were more posters like Gabriel, even if he WERE a snake in the grass. At least he argues; I’m tired of mindlessness from the left.
And, yes, there IS a “left,” even though, as has been rightly pointed out, it consists of a patchwork of ideologies. There are enough shared characteristics (hatred of Bush, political correctness, academic dogma — boy, do I know THAT one well!) to reasonably use as a template.
The same can be said of the “right.” I, as an example, am a libertarian. I distrust and dislike many Republicans as sellouts to what I see are core individual rights and values. (George Bush included.) The crucial difference is, by and large, the “right” tends to base their beliefs on common sense, rather than utopian ideals. I think of the “right” as not liking to have to do what their parents told them, but did them anyway, because they have to be done. The “left” is the eternal, resentful, dreamer adolescent. Both belong to the same family — but at some point, reality demands recognition and action, however distasteful it may seem.
Gabriel, stick around. I know it’s lonely to be a minority, but we all do need the dialogue.
And now for my own contribution to the unofficial collection of evidence that lefties are as they’ve been characterized: I’m both a recent college graduate and a journalist, and both spheres of influence are lousy with leftism. I can count on one finger the instructor I had who did NOT spout his leftist personal ideology before the class at Penn State University. (None professed any conservative viewpoints.) This instructor was Chinese — as a Marxist, perhaps the ultimate lefty — but he said he was there to teach algebra, not comment on world affairs. Good man.
I work for a small-town daily as a wire editor, and our supplier is the Associated Press. I have reams upon reams of stories about many topics that reveal a clear leftist spin. No longer is news the news — I’ll give you an example. A recent story led thusly:
“Reeling from recent blows to his credibility, President Bush tried to stave off negative opinion at his speech to the VFW in Kansas City, Mo. when he asserted that premature withdrawal from Iraq would be similar to the catastrophe that ensued after the U.S. pullout from Vietnam.”
Whatever happened to: “President Bush asserted in a speech to VFW members in Kansas City, Mo., that premature withdrawal from Iraq would result in a situation similar to the chaos that ensued after the U.S. pulled out of Vietnam.”
This is the effin’ ASSOCIATED PRESS. (Pardon the lame slang. Believe me, it represents extremely strong feelings.)
“Moderate” lefties? Very, very hard to find. I would appreciate links to any blogs or Web sites anyone knows of that are, in fact, deliberative and reasoned. I’m actually hungry for them.
Well, MissM, I’m neither here nor there. But it has been brought to my attention that kelly’s a cardboard cutout figure at Urban Outfitters. Little puke.